A Fresh Start for Fall

So my last post was a little over three months ago. Not gonna lie the summer has been rough for our little family with a badly sprained ankle for Sam and some ongoing health woes for me. Luckily the only thing plaguing Mc has been some sore teething gummers and the very occasional evening of reflux. We have been fortunate that he has only had two colds since he has been born and no other issues to speak of so far.

It's been strange feeling bad a lot of the time, and I don't know if any of you can relate but I have spent most of my energy just existing and trying to get through the day. What a bummer! A lot of the extra things that make life so enjoyable like blogging, entertaining friends, and showing Mc fun times  around town have gone by the wayside while I have been to different doctors, specialists, and even the emergency room trying to get some answers. However, I can finally say I am on the mend and hope to be 100% better in the next month or so. It sure makes you appreciate days when you do feel better and I have a renewed sense of feeling "Carpe Diem" and not wanting to take one moment for granted.

Here are some pictures we got a couple of weeks ago--our first "formal" family photo shoot with our favorite tiny guy, who is 10 months old now!

McClain's favorites: 4-6 months

Favorite things have evolved as M's needs and interests have changed over the last few months. (Most involving teething, tummy time/rolling, and eating). These are the MVPs that have gotten the most use!

1) Love these bucket hats from city threads. The brim is wide enough that you can fold the sides and still get a lot of coverage from the sun. We have one in navy that says "Brooklyn" and it is especially meaningful as it was the first item that Sam bought after he found out I was pregnant. Aww!

2) My most thoughtful pal Cindi let us borrow her Infantino gym and it has been used almost every day since M was 2 months old. When he was 2 months he would bat at the hanging toys, and then grab at them, and now at six months he uses the toys and sides to help roll over/practice climbing/crawling. This one is great too because the top collapses so you can pack the whole thing flat!

3) Munchkin's fresh food grinder wasn't one I thought I'd use much when we received it as a gift, but I have ended up using it quite a bit, especially for traveling. It's also great on the go, you can throw it in the diaper bag and mash up a little of whatever food you have on hand.

4) These multi-functional toys from LaMaze are a big hit at our house. We have Captain Calamari, as well as Sir Prance-a-lot and Rusty the Robot. Love the clever names and creative way this company approaches toy making.

5) I discovered these glass bottles on Amazon after reading Dr. Brown's glass bottles had a tendency to shatter when heating. We had inherited all of our bottles which was great, but they were plastic and I wanted a couple of glass options. These bottles are so awesome--the glass is made in France from borosilicate glass which when I researched this material found out that it is "resistant to extreme temperatures." The silicone sleeves are great for protecting the bottle from breakage. Also a smart idea--you can get zippy cup lids to switch out as your babe grows, so the bottle stays useful for many years! The dome cover fits with all their lids. I have to say I am truly a fan of these and may have to get a water bottle for myself soon.

6) M has a variety of toy keys around the house but what makes these Bright starts keys unique is they are also teethers! You can freeze them and the gel filled keys are great for teething relief. Double the pleasure, double the fun. The chunkier size is nice, too, and M loves jangling these.

7) The other teether that M really liked was this Sassy teething watermelon. He seemed to prefer the terry cloth texture for the longest time over silicone, and liked it wet or dry. The think I liked about wetting and/or freezing this one is it never seemed to get very drippy. The thicker watermelon rind absorbed most of the moisture so there wasn't ever too much of a mess. I just discovered they make a grape shaped one as well which we may have to get!

8) We got a lot of bibs as gifts and I have to tell you, a lot of bibs out there are somewhat useless. We have a couple (that have never been used) that are tiny scraps of fabric not fit to be an adult napkin, let alone catch food from a human learning to eat. The Skip Hop Zoo bibs are definitely my favorite so far--lightweight, fold up into a pouch, you can rinse them off even if they are covered in goo and set them out to dry, unlike some bibs that you literally have to throw in the washing machine after every use.

Coconut Chai Protein Balls

I have a love/hate relationship with this rainy, spring-shower-y weather this week. On the one hand, it's warm enough to keep a couple of windows open and listen to the blissful sound of the rain falling on the ground. Heaven! On the other, the little guy and are stuck inside --again... I decided I needed a healthy go-to snack, but something that felt decadent, and these Coconut Chai Protein Balls are just the ticket.



You can check out Cacoco here. I just happened to have the "Global Warrior" variety in my cupboard which is spiced with turmeric, cardamom, and mesquite, and was perfect for this incarnation of protein ball. You could use any chocolate you have, or skip the chocolate altogether and still have a snack that feels like a splurge.

Forcing myself to put the last four of these back in the fridge now...

McClain is 4 months!

At 4 months McClain seems to have discovered how to make some funny faces with his tongue and is really in to playing with his hands. Also digging his wee curly cue hairdo. I think in the top pic he looks more like me as a baby, and in the bottom one he favors Sam a bit more.

Other fun stuff my little man is doing at 4 months:

--He can sit up unassisted for a few, exciting seconds

--In addition to playing with his own hands, he's obsessed with everyone else's, too!

--After a lot of tricky nights over the past couple of months, he's getting the hang of putting himself to sleep in his crib, and sleeping in up to 10 hour stretches at night! (and we are very grateful to be able to catch up on some much needed shut eye)

Sam Shaves His Beard

Every other spring on the first really warm day Sam gets it in his head he wants to get rid of his beard. Then bam! Without warning he cuts it all off. He immediately regrets it. Hopefully McClain recognizes him when he wakes up...

Pulled Pork with Roasted Tomato Barbecue Sauce

Greetings brave humans!

It's coming up on late March and here in Kentucky we are staring down yet another snow forecast tonight. This is the fourth snow forecast/snowstorm this month (to reiterate, this is the month of MARCH) and I am going to have a for real nervous breakdown/move to Florida if it doesn't warm up to Spring temperatures soon.

We had one warm, magical day last weekend and Sam and I took it upon ourselves to pretend like it was summer and make some slow cooked pulled pork with roasted tomato barbecue sauce. At first we were going to just buy a bottle of sauce, but M gets reflux from most bottled tomato-based sauces. Fresh tomatoes don't bother him however, so we decided to slow roast some to see if we could achieve a loophole in the whole our-baby-gets-reflux-with-all-commercial-tomato-sauces problem.

First cover 3 lbs. of Boston butt pork with brown sugar and kosher salt, about 1/3 cup of each. You can wrap your meat and let this marinade sit in the fridge overnight, but we didn't have the foresight to do this, so our meat just sat for a couple of hours, and it still turned out super tender.

Behold. A pile of meat.

Meanwhile cut up 8 medium tomatoes, cover them with a drizzle of olive oil, minced fresh garlic, salt and pepper. Roast them for about 45 minutes at 300 degrees. And don't they look pretty right out of the oven!

Next put the meat in your slow cooker and let it cook on high heat for about 4 hours, flipping it once halfway through.

Let the tomatoes cool, then blend them in the food processor til smooth.

Break up the meat with some forks, so that they are in smaller pieces. Our pork was well cooked on the outside and a bit pink through the center. We poured the tomato sauce over the top, along with a few generous shakes of garlic powder, a few tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and another few tablespoons of brown sugar. Give the mixture a good stir and let it cook an additional 2 hours.

Pour off about 75% of the sauce and break the pork down into little pieces. We had a little bowl of sauce on the side if people wanted to add more. We also served green cabbage, cucumber, and dill slaw (similar recipe here. The only modification I made was to add about a Tablespoon of vegenaise to the dressing to cut the vinegar flavor down a bit) to go on top of the sandwiches, and man was it the perfect combo!

This turned out to be a great alternative to using bottled sauce. We will make it again soon!

Here's the whole recipe:

Dada is the funniest guy I know...

It's so fun watching babes start to develop a sense of humor. Judging by what has made this guy burst into his first long, loud giggles over the past couple of weeks, we're going to be making a lot of turkey calls in the coming months (or it could just be that Dada has the magic, funny touch--I have yet to get any giggles like this!)

McClain is 3 months!

Here's the little dude looking pensive in his three month pics:

Three months was a little rough because we figured out M gets bad reflux when I eat tomatoes/acidic fruits (pineapple, orange)--and it turns out I eat a lot of things with tomato sauce! We've had to get super creative with recipes so he's not up screaming in pain all night.

 Also at three months:

 --M is starting to laugh out loud (if you're really, really lucky and really, really funny)

 --His dark newborn hair is starting to fall out and blonde strands are coming in along the sides of his head!

 --He is figuring out how to suck his thumb and is starting to prefer it over his pacifier.

 --He will bat at and grab objects that are dangling above him.

The Adventures of Apollo & McClain: Part 1

Our nutty terrier mix, Apollo (I make sure everyone who meets him knows he was rescued from the streets of Harlem, as if this somehow explains his entire personality) is obsessed with McClain. He will run in and sit next to the crib when McClain is crying, and wedge himself under McClain's feet whenever I am feeding him. His latest antics involve licking McClain whenever I put him on the floor for tummy time (On Cindi's fabulous homemade quilt, no less!)

It starts like this:

But soon devolves into this:

Lest you think this is a super sweet interspecies moment, I will tell you that the above actually makes Apollo look a little too good. So I offer exhibit B:

McClain giggling at Apollo digging into the carpet is priceless. He seems to be cheering him on in his own, four-month-old baby way. You can almost envision the shenanigans these two are going to be getting into in a couple of years based on this interaction.

And so it begins. The faces of trouble.

Oscar party 2014

We had so much fun eating and watching the Academy Awards with good friends. It turns out having a four-month old made it harder to finish the perfect tablescape this time around, but didn't dampen our enjoyment

Above: Lone Star Fruit Salsa and pita chips (Dallas Buyer's Club) Similar recipe here.

Above: First Date Pizza (Her) and Philomena's birthday cupcakes (Philomena). It was one of our party guests' birthdays so this was in her honor!

Double bonus that Sam got a snow day off work the next day!

The 86th Annual Academy Awards Dream Menu

Y'all. I am an Oscars nerd. Every year for the past 6 years I have invited over my best movie loving friends and assigned every one a best picture nominee. Each guest brings a dish or drink that correlates to their assigned movie. It's weird and delicious!

Now, I don't know what all my friends are bringing this Sunday, but here's a sample menu with some dream dishes for each best picture nominee. Every year has a different vibe (a few years ago it seemed almost everything on the menu was french food), and this year has a decidedly seafood spirit. Links to recipes for similar dishes can be found below. Pictures from my party to follow Monday!

1) Homemade Moon Pies 2) Perfect-mom-point-cupcakes 3) Caesar Salad with Salad Bar Croutons 4) Texas Caviar

1) Stuck-at-sea Grilled Shrimp Cocktail 2) Clams Casino 3) FBI Agent Lobster Dip 4) Assorted Local Beer 5) Blackberry Gin Fizz

McClain's favorites: 0-3 months

As new parents we got tons of baby accoutrements at showers and from friends and family. Some of it we used only once or twice while other items have benefited M almost every day. Above are the MVP's from his first three months:
1) Halo Sleep Sack. Nothing fancy here, but we had several other similar blanket/sleep sack type deals given to us and I have found this one is the easiest for changing diapers in the middle of the night and has transitioned well even though we don't swaddle M anymore. The fleece one is great for winter, and we'll definitely be getting a lighter weight one for summer months.
2) Sound machine. We lived on a really busy street in Brooklyn and I had some sleepless nights before we invested in one of these babies. We keep one in our room and one in M's room, and they are practically on round the clock. We have barky dogs who I would have murdered by now were it not for the wonderful white noise emitted by these life savers.
3) Zutano fleece booties. We are now firmly in a I-kick-my-socks-off-deliberately-every-time-you-put them-on-me-phase (this is a phase, right?) but even before this phase, baby socks always seem to just fall right off babies feet. (And don't even get me started on where the other one goes when you wash them. I currently have a giant pile of tiny socks in my laundry room with no match). These guys stay on so much better than regular socks, and they're super soft to boot!
4) Small tins filled with coconut oil. I bought several little tins from our local health food store, and filled them with our favorite coconut oil. I keep one on the changing table and one in the diaper bag and congratulate myself daily for being so clever.
5) California Baby diaper wash. This stuff is awesome. I never would have bought it if a friend had not given us some to try, but now I am slightly obsessed with it. It's great for cleaning bottoms when a little poo is stuck on there (like when M poops in the middle of the night while asleep and we discover it several hours later...) We use washcloths to clean his bum and these are a perfect combo. M hasn't had any cuts yet but it says it works great for boo-boo's too, and I plan on trying it out then, when that harrowing day arrives! (hopefully when M is 12).
6) Chan Pie Gnon from Vulli. From the makers of Sophie the Giraffe, these little mushroom guys are a little more compact and easier for small hands to hold. Being a french nerd, I love that these varieties are named after the french word for "mushroom," and also love how they smell and feel and that they're made from natural rubber and food grade paints. When M was 2 months, he loved looking at their little faces, and now he's starting to teeth and loves to chew on their weird little heads.
7) Boppy with fabulous cover made by my talented mom. We use this now more for propping M up, but the first month or so I used this non stop for nursing. I know some people have hopped over to the My Breast Friend camp, and as much fun as it is to ask your husband out loud to bring you that when you have company over, I still prefer the Boppy for softness and versatility. Gorgeous fabric is by Joel Dewberry from his line, Notting Hill. Holding myself back from plastering my whole house in this.
8) Nose Frida. We were so excited when my brother came to visit for Thanksgiving, and at 6 weeks, gave M his first cold! Just kidding, it was hell on earth. Giving basically anything to a sick child who is under 12 weeks old is not recommended (swell!) but we found some much needed relief for M from his snotty nose with the Nose Frida (or as Sam likes to call it, the baby hookah). It's also weirdly satisfying to suck snot out of your baby's nose and see it all sitting in there. May you have your baby in the springtime and not suffer the same fate!

McClain is 2 months!

Here's the little buddy at 2 months, right after he got his first round of shots:

So Serious!

At 2 months:

--McClain goes on his first out of town trips, to Cincinatti (for a concert) and to Nashville for the weekend to visit all our good buddies.

--If you lay him in your lap he often strains to sit up, he wants to be sitting up and looking around like a big boy.

--He is sleeping in 5-8 hour stretches at night.

--At his two-month appointment, he weighed 12 lbs 11 oz, and was 24 inches. Meaning he has grown four inches in his short two months on earth! He's in the 90% percentile for head size and length and 50% for weight.

--He's loves to make eye contact with and have "conversations" with every person in the room.

Nursery D I Y - bird mobile

Ok, this isn't exactly a D I Y. This is a look-what-we-can-make-when-we-combine-things-bought-off-the-internet. But that is not really a thing, so we will just call it a D I Y even though it's cheating a little.

I have a problem with getting an idea in my head of a really specific item I want, and then spending 5 million hours searching for it on the internet, only to come to the conclusion that it doesn't exist. Is there a name for this? Well, this is what I did when I was hunting for a nursery mobile. I wanted a floaty, oversized tidbit of "forest" (the nursery theme would be enchanted forest, a combination of fairy tale and woodland theme) with pretty decorated birds attached. Almost as much a sculpture as mobile, in the ole mind's eye. I was depressed after dozens of etsy searches that turned up nothing close except for some beautiful $500 stained glass leaf mobiles that were a bit out of my price range.

Then I saw these beauties on sale at Land of Nod and knew I had to do something with them, even if I didn't know what yet:

I decided I would make some pretty leafy branches to hang them from, when my maternity leave started. A month passed and I happened upon this at BHLDN:

Eek! It was exactly what I imagined when I was picturing an overly complicated something that I would attempt to make. The branches have a wire center so you can bend any way you like. I did mine in a circular fashion over the crib, attached the birds, hung from the ceiling, and voila:

 

In person the mobile is the first thing you see when you walk in the nursery and it's quite eye catching! As an added bonus since the birds are cardboard and the leaves are paper, the mobile has a great floaty movement that will keep McClain (and adults) entranced for long stretches of time. Whenever I need to steal away and start a load of laundry or change clothes real quick, I can leave M watching this and he's entertained longer than just about anything else we have. Win!

Nursery D I Y - frame project

Our New York City apartment was a sprawling 550 square feet, and originally we had plans for Baby Williamson to sleep in a drawer. (Just kidding. Kind of.) Then when I was eight months pregnant (side note: I'm sure you're thinking what a blast! it sounds like to move in your third trimester of pregnancy but I do not recommend schlepping all your worldly belongings 700 miles when you are eight months pregnant. You should have your feet propped up with a big glass of lemonade at this juncture.) and we relocated to our cute little Lexington house, we suddenly had triple the space to fill (and only about a month until baby was due to arrive). I needed to frame lots of things on the cheap, but wanted a custom look. I had purchased these fabulous vintage fairy tale prints from Etsy and wanted oversized gold frames to show them off. I stalked several second hand and vintage home decorating stores in town that I knew had framed art until I found large ones that would fit my fairy tale prints. I wasn't too concerned that they all matched or were exactly the same size because I planned on getting mats cut for all of them in the same color, which I hoped would give them a cohesive look.

 Here are my frames before (with funny art that was in them when purchased):

With some patience I scored all these frames for 40 bucks! I then got navy mats cut at a local framer for another $40. (I would not recommend Michael's, who mysteriously seem to always be advertising a frame sale with promises of big discounts, yet wanted to charge close to $100 just to have mats cut, and said it would take two weeks! To quote Coffee Talk from 90's SNL days this is neither a sale or a big discount. Discuss.) My local framer literally had them ready in less than an hour, and as an extra bonus I felt warm and tingly about supporting a small business. Made me wonder why I had given shady Michael's (as I shall call them from this day forward) any of my framing business in the first place.

Here are the frames after (with new art and mats cut):

The top left frame originally had a funky greenish marbleized pattern going on, but I got the Krylon gold leaf pen and had way too much fun scribbling in all the space. I was really happy with the end result. All in all I spent $90 for all four frames, mats, and the pen, and I think they turned out ravishing, and looking like they cost quite a bit more. Stay tuned for more nursery D I Y's and a nursery reveal in a few weeks!

McClain is 1 Month!

Here's my sugar pie at one month :

I will be catching up over the next few weeks posting McClain's monthly stop motion videos until they're up to date. 1 month is a bit of a blur by now but at one month I remember through the haze of sleep deprivation that:

--McClain is smiling and cooing people

--He's sleeping in five hour stretches at night

--He has his first cold after a thanksgiving visit from his infected Uncle

--He will suck on a pacifier or his fingers if he's lucky enough to find them

--So far he is a night owl and sleeps his longest stretches after midnight!

--He smiles and laughs in his sleep

McClain's Birth Story

To me labor and becoming a parent for the first time is a bit like reading about driving a whole lot but never getting behind the wheel. I think of the evening of October 18th, 2013 as the beginning of our finally taking the wheel:

My mom was visiting for two weeks, and she had already burned through her first week while we waited for baby Williamson to arrive. My brother Hunter came to hang out for the weekend, and it looked like it was going to be another couple of days of thumb twiddling as I was already three days past my due date and had decided this baby was never coming out. But then, just after we finished dinner and sent mom and Hunter off to bed, my water broke. I had been having contractions for a few hours, but had had many other evenings like this, and knew I wasn't very far along. However, I was strep positive and Sam was anxious to get going as our midwife had told us "not to dilly dally." To me this meant we had time for me to take a long shower and stop by the grocery store to procure cookies for the nurses. Sam was annoyed that we couldn't go straight there, but I knew we had many hours ahead of us. While I showered, Sam "packed" (i.e. grabbed our already packed go-bags from a nearby table and proclaimed he was ready to go whilst I called out more items that we needed that he had to go look for, one at a time). Our 1:30am cookie run didn't take as long as I'd hoped, and when we arrived at the hospital we learned they had lost our pre-registration paper work, and I was forced to answer such pressing questions as "are you currently employed?" before they would check us in.

We got settled in our room and after some time two nurses arrived and were very amused that 1) I had never been in a hospital before as a patient (I guess this was evidenced by the fact that I was hanging out in my clothes and hadn't changed into a hospital gown yet) and 2) I claimed that I wouldn't be getting an epidural. Oh they thought that was hilarious. They informed us that I was about 3cm dilated, then botched getting an iv stuck properly in my arm for the strep antibiotics (and apologized profusely for it). Sam's mom arrived and we turned on our hypnobabies tracks and settled in for a long night. The contractions were uncomfortable and seemed to be getting closer together, but the hypnobabies tracks and support of Sam and his mom were helping immensely.

Around 10am my midwife Nancy arrived and informed me I was 4cm. Only 4! I was a little deflated and hoped that I would be further along after all those hours. We labored on, rolling around on the birthing ball, and hypo-breathing our way through wave after wave. There was one room reserved for women laboring without drugs that had a bathtub, and I kept asking if I could be moved there. I longed to soak in some warm water. At first I was told the woman currently occupying the room was "almost done" and her baby was "small" -- but every time I asked I was told the room was occupied, and finally I realized they had given the room to someone else instead of moving me over to it! Also complicating matters was the fact that 12+ hours into labor, I still hadn't reached "zero station" i.e. the baby hadn't dropped all the way (in fact my midwife and a couple of nurses asked me if I had every had surgery on my business because I guess it was unusual that the baby hadn't dropped this far into labor). At 5pm Nancy checked me and told us I was 5cm. Only 5!? I was approaching 24 hours in labor and fatigue was beginning to set in. I also felt I was set back by having to sit down every hour, get hooked up to the iv, and get those darned antibiotics. I wanted to be up and moving around and this lying down every hour felt like a constant step backward. Nancy was concerned I had only progressed a couple of centimeters in over 12 hours and suggested we start a "whiff of pitocin" to see if we could make more progress. I wasn't too excited about getting the pitocin but when Nancy hinted that the alternative was going to be a c-section I knew I didn't have a choice. I had trained and trained with this hypnobabies program and had envisioned things going a bit differently!

As soon as they started me on the pitocin -- the "lowest possible dose" according to Nancy -- the rocketship of pain began and things moved super quick. At this point I tried to keep doing my breathing and my hypnosis techniques but the pain intensified so quickly that all I could do was scream through each wave. I kept wondering what I must sound like to any people in the hallway who happened to be walking past my room. Around this time the nurses changed over and thank God I got this wonderful nurse, Melissa--an angel sent from above who said she had had four children all natural and had been given pitocin with her first just like me. Melissa suggested my screaming would be more effective if I redirected my energy to a low groaning, and she showed me how. What a difference. I felt immediately like Melissa and I were fast friends and I remember telling her "they made me take pitocin" and after what felt like an eternity of horrible painful contractions I asked her "Am I close to transition?" (I knew from my reading that transition meant I was getting close to pushing time) "Honey, you're in it right now," she said, and I told her "I brought cookies for everyone, and I want you to have all of them." I congratulated myself on maintaining the ability to make the occasional joke.

At this point time and space had slipped away and I was in my animal brain, but Nancy checked me again at eight something and I was around 9cm. I just remember having to clamp down on Sam's arms and relying on him so much to look at the monitors and tell me when a wave was about to start and when it was ending. "Natural labor, what was I thinking?" crossed my mind a few times, but then the room filled with nurses (it seemed like the whole floor was there--oh look there's the ladies who did my iv last night--meaning I had been at this for 24 hours now, yeeesh). The dang pitocin had done the trick, and around 9pm, it was finally time to push. I remember Nancy checking me and saying she could "feel the baby's hair." They had me flat on my back and in stirrups, which made me feel rather like a barn animal. When I began pushing, Nancy told me to push, and take a breath in between, to prevent tearing. Now it was burning like the fire of a thousand suns, something else I had read about, and I was getting a charley horse in one leg, and like 8 people were yelling at me to push while I just tried to concentrate on Nancy's direction. I wanted to scream at all of them to shut up, but being back in the South all I managed to say was "I am so sorry but I am going to poop." After 20 minutes of pushing, Nancy said "one more push and you're going to meet your baby," and oh I was determined to have this thing be over and meet whoever was waiting in there. He popped out and promptly pooped all over me (I'm told--we were both cleaned off and I couldn't see a thing from the position I was in). Nancy announced that she thought he was going to be nine pounds and I hadn't torn one bit. She handed him to me and informed me that I "have the perfect birthing pelvis" (Well at least SOMETHING about this process was perfect! I remember thinking) and then I was just shocked as I held this new, wriggling little human. Samuel McClain. He was sucking on two fingers and looking around at this big new world, all eight pounds eleven ounces of him, and he was perfect.

Riding the Subway While Pregnant in NYC

When I was just beginning to show, a friend of mine who was a few months ahead of me in her pregnancy asked if I had had anyone offer me their seat yet.

"Watch who gives up their seat for you," she said. "It's surprising."

"How so?" I asked.

She paused for a moment and added, "the people who give up
their seat are those who've been oppressed. Basically everyone except white guys. The white guy in the suit rarely offers his seat."

I was intrigued. I decided right then and there to keep track of every single person who offered their seat to me over the next few months, and make a note of their gender, race, and any other details I could remember.

For the next five months or so I did just that and these are the results of my unofficial study on riding the subway while pregnant:

At first it was just women, of all different races and mostly ranging in age from their 30's to 50's. All in all 28 women offered seats up during those months.

Men were fewer and further between in seat offering, with 12 men across those five months giving up their seat. 6 of the men were African American, 3 were Hispanic, and 2 were Asian.

I was beginning to think I would go my whole pregnancy without one
white dude offering a seat, until my birthday in July. I wish I'd interviewed the guy to find
out something about him. He was with a lady friend, and was wearing a denim shirt with rolled up sleeves, showing off lots of tattoos on his forearms. I was holding flowers and was riding home with a good male friend. Maybe it was because I was in the company of a white male, and this dude saw something of himself and his lady friend in the two of us.

But that was it. The next two months in NYC passed with no other male whities offering and it getting more and more awkward as I grew larger and larger.

Some women expressed outrage. Once I was taking a very crowded F train into the city and another woman yelled at everyone, "None of you will offer this woman a seat!? Shame on you!"

I tried to stand in the middle of a car as far away from the benches as I could when I would step on and not be able to find a seat. I saw some pregnant women blatantly stand in front of people to try to get seats, but I felt awkward doing that, not to mention the fact that it would skew my results!

The people who showed kindness often surprised me. Once I man drinking a wine cooler at 9am offered me his seat, if I would hold the doors open for him at a stop while he threw away an empty bottle.

Another time an older woman offered me her seat, while her younger son (who looked to be in his 20's, and was, yes, white) stayed in his seat. After a moment, he realized the awkwardness of his still sitting while the woman who brought him into this world stood. He then relinquished his seat for her (I don't count that one as a seat offered since he technically gave the seat up for his mom).

Never in my life have I relied so much on the kindness of strangers, and I was relieved to leave the city and not have to pretend to listen to my headphones while people stared at my belly every time I got on the train. It was a humbling season.

Quest for Banh Mi Magic

Sometime late in the fall, when a few leaves still clung to thinning city trees, I became obsessed with finding the perfect Vietnamese sandwich. The Banh Mi is a sandwich delicacy, made up of fresh baked French bread, thinly sliced vegetables, cilantro, and usually some kind of spicy/meat spread and some version of pork and/or other meats (it's a lot to take in, I know. For help, see diagram.)






Baogette, conveniently located across the street from the Curry Hill Armory and location of the Victoria's secret fashion show, was my first foray into Vietnamese sandwich world and had me at hello. Their version of the Sloppy Joe, the "Sloppy Bao," barbecue pork, and catfish options offer a twist on the classic Banh Mi and immediately had me hooked. I quickly dragged Sam to several Chinatown establishments, one of which was located in the back of a jewelry store.






Additionally, Banh Mi Saigon, as it's known, have deli cases full of mysterious Asian drinks, sides, & puddings. Sam and I tried a drink that was full of basil seeds, which was slightly sweet and perfectly tasty, if a little strange texturally.













When our classic banh mi's were finally ready, we had taken inventory on the plethora of colorful décor, from dish tanks to shrines to we're-not-sure-who:













The banh mi itself was the perfect blend of spicy, sweet, and soft bread with just-crispy-enough crust:







Most recently we discovered a Banh Mi place right down the street from our apartment, appropriately called "Banh Mi"--there emphasis was on noodles, sandwiches, and bubble tea, which I had always been intrigued by but never bothered ordering. Like the basil seed drink, it came with giant jelly-ish balls floating in it, and an oversized straw to slurp up all the strange goodness. It's like a distant cousin of tapioca pudding, in drink form:







The banh mi's weren't too shabby either, if a little on the too chewy side.

Get thee to your neighborhood Vietnamese sandwich shop yesterday, friends, and take hold of your culinary destiny.