Pbenjay's Blog

Today as compared to yesterday was fairly calm.  This morning Chiara, Fletcher and I drove the girls to school and then Fletcher went to the doctor’s office for his one week old check in.  He gained 10 ounces!  That’s a lot of nursing going on here!  Pediatrician said, take him outside, let him get some Vitamin D and he skillfully removed the last of belly button thing, you know it’s part of the umbilical  cord!  I’ve had two babies but I never wanted to deal with that and was fortunate enough to have my Grandma Schmidt stay with me once the babies were born and she took care of “that”.  When the doctor asked Chiara if she wanted that piece, I looked at him as if he were crazy.  However, it must be me who is so out of the loop!   I asked: “What do they do with it”? He said they put it in the baby book!  Ay yi yi!  A dark brown dried-up body part in the baby book!

By the time we got home, the first visitor of the day was in the driveway.  She’s the one who baked the delicious cake.  While Chiara chatted, Frankie decided sitting on my lap with Mommy’s iPad was a grand idea.  The fact that I was trying to type the previous blog seemed to be of absolutely no concern of hers.  

I have been trying for two days to get Belle’s recipe for Quinoa written down.  It has proven to be impossible even with the Translate app and the Voice Search app.  Many times the Voice Search does not hear my words correctly and you can’t believe what comes out!  Shallots came back in Spanish as a shower. Pretty much the way the auto-fill auto-complete feature on my cell phone sends messages complete with non-sequitors (if I don’t read what I wrote before I hit send).  So finally Belle went to the cabinet, grabbed the bag of quinoa and motioned for me to come and watch her so I would know how to make this dish.   It worked!  I wrote down what she was doing and hopefully I got it all right so I can recreate this tasty side dish.  Once I am home and I make it, if it comes out right, I’ll post the recipe.

 When Finley arrived home, she came with 3 kids and another Mom.  The decibel level rose at least 10 degrees!  One of the many gifts that arrived today was a box with two Princess costumes!  They were so pretty and it was very thoughtful of Tara to include the girls with presents because she sent Fletcher gifts.  As soon as the girls saw them they wanted to  put their own  on and the other’s.  You know where this is going,,,,pretty soon two girls are crying and the dresses gp upstairs to their bedroom and their 3 friends are playing and running around in the midst of it all.   

It’s now 9:00pm;  Tom has yet to come home from work.  The girls ate dinner before we did and had baths and books and went to bed.  Fletcher had his first bath tonight.  Belle bathed him talking and cooing to him in Spanish the whole time while she washed him.  By then Chiara laid down on the bed holding him in her arms to settle him down and of course she was the one who settled down, exhausted from getting up during the night and on the go since 7am this morning.  So as I write this she’s been sleeping for over an hour now.  That left Belle and I – so I said let’s eat.  The two of sat at the table enjoying her lentils with some rice and the quinoa.  It was so peaceful at the table, just two adults trying to talk in two different languages.  

It must be time for me to play a little Scrabble online and maybe Words of Wonder (don’t ask) ! 

Quinoa (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I considered posting a picture of a baby with the “stump” still on the belly button but I was grossing myself out!