The Joy Of Milk

My son loves milk. When he starts to drink it, his whole face lights up… he is completely focused… he smacks and savors it… there is nothing in his world aside from milk when he’s drinking.

What a great way to live! I’m inspired by his enthusiasm. I adore his commitment. He is 100% zen in the moment. The tears are forgotten. Worries don’t exist. He is blissed out enjoying what he loves. His passion flood his existence.

I hope as a parent I never rob him of this mentality.

The more I watch him, the more I think babies are born perfect.

My first fancy dessert

When I was 17, my parents took me to my first fancy restaurant. I had been to places that had beautiful place-settings… folded napkins… multiple forks… but I had never been to a place that saw food as an art form.

We ate foods on sticks that shouldn’t have been on sticks. Everything was stacked on something with a different color sauce drizzled across and a spice dusting here or there. I was inspired. Why couldn’t our goulash look like this?

When the waiter asked if we wanted dessert, my sister and I made the cutest, saddest, hungriest eyes we could and my parents agreed to split a chocolate souffle with everyone.

I had never tried a souffle before, but the waiter assure me it would be like a “chocolate cake”… but cake didn’t even begin to describe the bliss. The edges were crisp. The cake was tender and delicate. And the center was filled with a molten chocolate that leaked out like my fork had just hit a chocolate artery. I was in heaven.

I had never eaten a dessert prepared so artistically before. When the waiter asked if there was anything else he could get us, I joked that I wanted the recipe for that “cake.” He agreed and hurried off to the kitchen.

What had I done? The conversation around the table turned to hushed inquiries about if the recipe was free or I had just added thousands of dollars to the bill. As the waiter approached the table, my parents asked how much the recipe cost. They happened to give out two recipes on the menu and this was one of them. (I must not be the only person who loved that cake!). So here is the Chocolate Souffle Recipe that almost got me seriously grounded. I have never been able to re-create it like they did, but it is still delicious.

Chocolate Souffle Recipe

6 Tbsp Unsalted Butter
4 oz Semi-Sweet Chocolate
¼ cup Sugar
1¼ Tbsp Corn Starch
2 eggs + 2 egg yolks

In a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and chocolate together. Set aside.
In a mixing bowl, combine the sugar and cornstarch. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and yolks together. Add the melted butter-chocolate mixture to the sugar mixture and combine thoroughly with a wire whisk. Stir in the eggs and whisk just until smooth. Place in the refrigerator overnight.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line 4 metal rings (about 2.75 inches across and 2 inches high) with greased parchment paper. (Alternative, use 6 smaller molds.) Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set the molds on the sheet. Scoop the mixture into the molds so they are two-thirds full, and make sure the molds are not leaking.

Bake on the top oven rack for 20 minutes or until there is about a nickel/dime sized center of uncooked batter. Remove the baking sheet from the oven, and while holding each mold with tongs, slide a metal spatula underneath, carefully lift, and transfer to a serving plate. Gently lift off the mold and remove the parchment paper. Serve immediately.

How do you overcome adversity?

My wife and I live a drama-free life with stable friends because we both thrive off of peaceful environments. But this summer we had a horrible month where everything went wrong. Basically we had to move twice and lost a lot of money in the process.

I know this is a zero on the human tragedy scale, but I’m fortunate to consider it a bad event in my life. I’ve struggled to move on because a part of me still wants to sue everyone possible. I know that isn’t the answer, so here are some ideas that helped me move on and find closure.

Do you want happiness or justice? I’m upset because I still feel wronged, but justice isn’t happiness. I could challenge a lot of this in court and potentially get some money back — but would that money bring me happiness? Probably not. The money feels important now but it’s just small change compared to a lifetime of working. Plus, a court case would draw everything out and rob me of time with my family (which is far more valuable).

How does the adversity affect you now? All of this was hard at the time and made for a stressful month, but it doesn’t affect me now. I can choose to be happy now. I still have a lovely family, friends, job, roof over my head, etc.

What do you love to do? What dreams do you have? What excites you? What makes your life feel fulfilled? When I think about these questions, each of them becomes a concrete path to long-term happiness. Whenever I feel myself dwelling on last month, I try to focus on my dreams instead.

What “unhappiness triggers” are around you? I had letters, bills, documents, notes pertaining to that month and every time I walked passed them they reminded me of the whole ordeal and my mind jumped into an endless loop of despair… so I buried them deep in a box. I don’t want to be constantly reminded of that month. I replaced that stack of papers with a picture my wife had drawn for me.

I hope these ideas can help because they were useful to me. But mostly, I hope the adversity in your life is as painless and fleeting as mine was.

Remember to use your five senses

Double Rainbow
Great news! We all have five senses, so why do we forget to use them?

I’m amazed how often I pound down my dinner without even tasting it, drive to work without stopping near a grove of red maple leaves, or turn on background music without realizing it’s on. (That last one might be for the better considering it’s Yanni.)

Our senses are our only immediate connection to the physical world, so it’s a shame we don’t use actually them…. I think it’s because our brains run a muck. They tell us we need to get to places faster or that it’s more efficient to pick up food that doesn’t even taste that good. That way we can focus on what the brain wants us to do more. We’re so busy listening to our brains that we forget about the beautiful world we live in.

I’m sick of it. The last year, I have started to follow my senses. I have slowed down and eaten a peach with my eyes closed so I could really taste the juice. I stopped and watched a double rainbow on the drive home. I went hiking and heard the crunch of the Earth below me. Not only does my time feel more meaningful and ceremonious when I listen to my senses, but I feel more relaxed. I feel more in sync with what it means to be a human.

So cook your favorite meal, eat it at your dining room table and put your fork down throughout the meal… let me know what you think….

What we can learn from peek-a-boo

My son has just started to sort of play peek-a-boo. As an adult, it’s hard to believe he actually thinks I vanish when I pull the blanket over my face. (And what a scary world it must be if everything disappears forever when you turn your head!)

But peek-a-boo got me thinking about a hard time in my life after college. I had moved to a new city. I was unhappy. I was lonely. In many ways, it felt like all of my friends — my whole world in fact — had disappeared. The only time it would reappear was the weekend when I would drive a few hours to see old friends.

I may have learned that objects exist when I closed my eyes, but emotionally I hadn’t mastered the game of peek-a-boo. I felt happiest on the weekends when I was back with familiar friends and places. It was hard for me to keep that joy and positivity the rest of the week when the blanket was pulled over my head.

Peek-a-boo has made me realize that friends and family are always there to help… and that you’re rarely alone when communication is so easily accessible. You just have to remember to have meaningful, real conversations — not status updates about the toast you had for breakfast (which happened to be a bit dry, by the way).

I am Exhausted

Tired Dog

I am exhausted today. We had wonderful company visiting all weekend… I’m in the middle of a complex problem at work… I’m doing final edits on a new book… and I’ve come to realize that babies take a fair bit of attention as well.

Sitting here in the dark, I’m not sure which part of my brain is still typing or how the keys are depressing on my laptop. Perhaps it’s the final surge of sugar left from the coated pretzels I got at the grocery store. I had been eying them up for a month and finally decided to buy them: definitely the right decision.

If you’re looking for a poignant ending to this post, you’ll have to stay tuned for tomorrow. As I mentioned before, I’m exhausted today.

10 Surprising Things We Weren’t Prepared For With Our Baby

My wife and I did a lot of reading, classes and preparation for our son, but we still had many surprise/last-minute trips to the store because we didn’t have enough of something. Here are the surprising things we didn’t plan for:

Counter-top Space: When you have a baby, all the things you need to care for the baby and a drink or book for yourself, you need a lot of counter-top space. I had to buy an extra shelving unit and end table because we never had enough. How much do you have?

Diaper Wipes: We knew we needed a lot of diapers because they can easily soil a bakers dozen or more each day… but I wasn’t prepared for the number of wet wipes we also had to buy. Each diaper definitely took more than 1 wipe when we started. I swear the kid ate some of them because I have no other explanation for where they disappeared to.

Low Light: I’m a fan of 100+ Watt bulbs that flood the room with bright light… but that’s the last thing you want when it’s the middle of the night and you have to change or feed your baby… so have some soft, dim lights you can use in the middle of the night.

Small nail file: Our son was born with long fingernails that almost needed trimming before we took him home. I had hoped to bit them, but I couldn’t get low enough (and the midwife recommended against cutting them because they have skin under their nails). So I bought an emery board to file his nails. It’s worked the best for us.

Clothing with snaps: We didn’t know how we would dress our baby, so we bought a huge assortment of clothing… but our favorite has been one-sies with SNAPS. The snaps make it so much easier to take on and off when you’re struggling to figure out how to care for a baby. Newborn clothes should definitely have snaps.

Learning How To Swaddle: This is more of a skill than a product, but we definitely wished we knew how to swaddle better. For the first 24 hours, our son was a mini-houdini and able to get out of any swaddle we tried. But thankfully there’s a great incentive to get swaddling right (SLEEP!), so we figured it out. (The Happiest Baby on the Block method + Youtube helped us out).

Soothies: If you’re breastfeeding, soothies are not only comforting as your nipples heal from the first few days of figuring out how breastfeeding works… but keeping the nipples moist seem to help with the healing process.

Nipple Balm: Continuing on the previous entry, a nipple balm (like Wish Garden’s Nipple Salve) helped protect my wife’s nipples so they could recover before any really painful side effects of breast feeding reared their ugly heads.

Clean Tops: It’s hard for every pregnant woman to have enough comfortable shirts because their torso is constantly changing sizes… but we were surprised to have that trend continue after birth as well…. we had enough tops for pregnancy and she planned to wear them afterwards, but babies can dirty 3 tops in an afternoon… and we weren’t ready for that kind of shirt turn-around.

Finally…: These are all things we had plenty of, but we were surprised how much we loved them: 1. Aden + Anais Muslins – we used them for everything. 2. Easy diaper trash with super tight lid (because nobody wants to smell that). 3. Boppy – the most comfortable way to have a baby on your lap.

Writing What Kids Want

One of the best things about being an author is that I get to be playful and childlike. In most businesses, the importance of seriousness is expressed constantly by the formal clothes, sterile cubes and cheesy motivational posters.

But as an author, my job is to entertain. It’s really hard to remember that not all of life is dull!

The seriousness of being a grown-up always sneaks in. And for a moment, you think it’s a good idea to write about your characters taking out the garbage and doing other important chores that adults are saddled with because that makes your story more believable.

When I start writing about chores, I know it’s time to walk around, read something funny, IM a friend sit and smile. If a kid would find the topic boring, it’s probably not something to write about.

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