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August 30, 2007

Bruce Springsteen and Western PA

I really do think that the kiddos like Bruce Springsteen. I won't be feeling any movement, and then I turn on the greatest hits CD I have, and a dance party will get started. One side of me feels like I should be teaching them to like Beethoven and Bach, rather than Springsteen, and the other side of me wonders if they'll like Bob Dylan, too.

I've been musing why I have such a thing for Bruce Springsteen right now. I never really got into him before now. And then I realized...

His songs are incredibly Western Pennsylvanian. "Johnstown company store," "Grove City bus," "textile mill closing down," etc. He even played in a band called "Steel Mill"! Wikipedia talks about him as having blue collar New Jersey roots, which I guess is close enough for me to feel a Western PA flavor to his music.

I love Pittsburgh and the surrounding Western PA area. I love the fact that the immigrants worked so hard to survive in a new place and to preserve their cultural heritage. I love the hills and the rivers, and the urban-yet-still-country flavor. I love the toughly-independent yet community centered approach to life that people have. I love the fact that Pittsburgh has reshaped itself into an incredibly attractive city, yet fiercely preserves the immigrant cultures that helped to create it.

Springsteen's song "My Hometown" captures the incredible love that people have for their own places in Western, PA, a loyalty not based on the perfection of the city or town, but on something deeper, I'm not sure exactly what.

The Deer Hunter really captures some of this. A very disturbing movie during the Vietnam parts, but it captures this feeling of Western PA in its portrayal of life in Clairton, PA--close to the Johnstown/Altoona area where Tim grew up. The deerhunting, the beer drinking, the Steelers, the steel mill, the Orthodox wedding, the unbelievable loyalty to friends.

I suddenly realized that this is going to be part of our kids' heritage. They'll have the blood of immigrants and coal miners and steel workers flowing through their veins. I hope they have the strength and independence of spirit that I've seen in Tim's family. It just struck me that the heritage of two families will blend in these two children--it's not just my history that they'll inherit, it's Tim's history as well.

And then another insight dawned on me--I have a little of this blood running through my veins as well, maybe that's why Pittsburgh felt like home to me in such a deep way. My mother's mother is a second generation Polish immigrant who grew up--at least for part of her childhood--in Western PA. She and her family were rescued in the 1936 Johnstown Flood. She (as a small child) was pictured in the local newspaper because she refused to climb out the second story window into the rescue boat until the rescuers agreed to take her cat as well.

Posted by Tim and Jo at 3:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 29, 2007

Third trimester and baby belly

So, at 26.5 weeks, I think I've hit my third trimester. Maybe it's 27. I haven't quite figured out how they measure. Anyway, I'm on the home-stretch. A few milestones:

*26 weeks: I've made it past the "edge of viability"--if they were born this week (hopefully they'll hang out in there a good long time more!), they'd have a good fighting chance of surviving (with lots of medical intervention). Not to be morbid, but with the risk of preterm labor with twins, I've been watching these dates closely! But I'd really like to make it to some of the next milestones...

*28 weeks: 7 months--woohoo!

*30 weeks: their lungs have developed more strongly, and they'd probably have a much shorter time in NICU

*36-37 weeks: if I make it this long, they should be just fine. 37w isn't even considered premature, and 36-37ww is actually the average for when twins are born.

So, I wasn't going to do this as most twin bellies--and mine isn't going to be an exception--seem to be more awe-inspiring than awwwww-inspiring, especially toward the end (though some twin bellies are quite cute). But there are two little lives in there, and I did kind of want to document what it was like. So, I've put a picture below...

Continue reading "Third trimester and baby belly"

Posted by Tim and Jo at 3:38 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

August 20, 2007

Summer cooking: tomatoes and watermelons

Well...it's been a long time since I've blogged about anything other than All Things Baby, so here's a break for those of you who get slightly nauseated when inundated with too much cuteness.

I haven't done as much cooking this summer as I usually do, at least not as much creative cooking. I've probably done more in general, but (*blush*), I'm relying much more heavily on boxes and bags and freezers (but I make sure that I supplement with or add fresh vegetables and/or protein sources to the mixes/frozen foods). My energy level is definitely lower these days, and the triple-digit Georgia temperatures aren't exactly an incentive to stand over a hot stove. And at his request, Tim has asked me to teach him how to cook (so that he can help me as I get more limited or busy with babies), so I've been teaching him some easy dishes.

But here's a few things that I've done lately!

I have a summer ritual that started several years ago in Pittsburgh. A church friend couple has an enormous tomato garden, and they've shared their bounty with us repeatedly. We walked around the man's garden, and felt like we were being taken to a wine cellar by a great conneisseur. He told us the best qualities of all of his 40-something variety of tomatoes. And his heirloom tomatoes were beautiful. There was one variety that reminds me of a Monet watercolor, reds and yellows streaming together. I always saved those until last.

Anyway, my favorite thing to do with really good, in season tomatoes is to make a fresh tomato sauce. I used to have a recipe, but now I sort of wing it. A couple weeks ago, our local Whole Foods-ish grocery store, Earth Fare, had a .99/lb. (!!) sale on local heirloom tomatoes. Here's what I do:

Uncooked Tomato Sauce

1) Chop, deseed, and drain slightly (if necessary) 2-3 lbs of tomatoes.
2) Toss in bowl with olive oil, 2-3 cloves of minced garlic, salt to taste, freshly ground pepper to taste, and 2-3 tablespoons (or more!) of chopped, fresh basil (or whatever herb you have on hand). You can also add a teaspoon or two of balsamic vinegar if you want to deepen the taste. Also, some diced olives and/or capers makes a nice variation.
3) Dice 8-16 oz. brie OR fresh mozzarella OR crumble feta cheese. Toss with mixture.
4) Allow to set at room temperature for a couple of hours
5) Bring 8-16 oz. of pasta (angel hair is nice, or pretty much anything!) to a boil.
6) Toss with tomatoes while still hot. The pasta melts the cheese a little bit, but the uncooked tomatoes taste sooooo fresh!

I've also developed a watermelon fetish this summer. I've found it's a great way to stay hydrated, and get some vitamin C at the same time. Of course, I love it fresh, but I've also started making a virgin margarita-ish drink with it. So, again I wing it, but here's what I've been doing.

Watermelon "Virgin Margarita" and Granita

1) Cut several cups of watermelon into chunks, and dump into blender (I fill it about 3/4's of the way)
2) Pour 1-2 tsps. of lime juice over it.
3) Once or twice, I've gotten a watermelon that's not quite as sweet as I've liked, so I put in a teaspoon or two of the strawberry jam I made earlier in the summer. Frozen or fresh blueberries are nice, too.
4) Add half a dozen or so ice cubes and blend.
5) Then after I've drunk my fill, I freeze the rest into a granita. I pour it into a shallow bowl, put it into the freezer, and scrape it every few hours.

Yum!

Posted by Tim and Jo at 1:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 16, 2007

Contrary to popular opinion...

1) My bladder is not a punching bag, despite any superficial resemblance between the two.

&

2) The space underneath my ribs is not a great place to play hide-and-seek from your brother. Besides, he's too busy with his punching bag.

Posted by Tim and Jo at 10:23 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 14, 2007

Old friendships, odd friendships, new friendships

Old friendships--On Saturday night, Austina spent the night with us, and we went to church together in the AM. It's been so fun--and encouraging--to have her nearby! It's nice, too, that both she and Tim are librarians, so they have plenty to talk about as well. During my senior year at Covenant, when I was sad about leaving behind so many friends, an older woman told me that God had a way of bringing old friends back into her life in completely unexpected ways. I've seen the truth of that over and over again.

Odd friendships*--she came after I left the program, but I've become friends with a woman in my old department at UGA. Over the past few years, we've been stumbling into each other at conferences, and I always felt like we'd become great friends if we ever had the chance to spend more time together. She now attends the church we're going to in Athens!

New friendships--last Saturday, we went to a baby/maternity fair (more on that later if I get up the gumption). While there, I found a Moms of Multiples group that meets each month. Tonight, I'm meeting the group for dinner. This is stepping way out of my comfort zone for me. I have a natural introversion that it makes it hard for me to reach out in unfamiliar situations. But also in some ways, it still hasn't dawned on me that I'm a mom yet, or what exactly that will entail. I'm making a slow transition from grad student to (at least for now) stay at home mom.

*odd in the way that the friendship was formed!

Posted by Tim and Jo at 4:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 10, 2007

Funny bunnies

Over the past few days, the quality of kicking has changed with the twins.

Earlier, I would feel small, fast movements--a poke here, a nudge there. And not always painless, either, as our boy was breech and backwards, kicking all the nerves near my spine. (he recently flipped over--which is good--but now he has his head pressed into my bladder, which brings its own set of difficulties)

But now it feels like I have bouncy bunnies in my tummy. All jumpy and springy, with big, strong movements, like bunnies flexing their back legs for a jump. Little Thumper and Bumper, haha. I keep on watching my belly, thinking that if I watch at the right time, I'll actually be able to see the motion. Hasn't happened yet.

They got pretty wound up right after I ate Indian food. I wonder if they liked it or hated it? Random pregnancy fact: babies drink and taste the amniotic fluid, which is somewhat flavored by the food that you eat. It's thought that by tasting the food that the mother eats, it makes it easier for the kids to adapt to their culture's cuisine later on. I hope our kids like eating lots of foods (eventually)!

Posted by Tim and Jo at 2:32 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

August 9, 2007

Rant about perfectionism

We watched the movie Gattaca a couple of nights ago. It wasn't that disturbing in general--I mean, it was a pretty fun action/futuristic/adventure flick--but the premise was so close to stuff going on today that it made me revisit a number of things that I've been thinking about for awhile. The premise is that IVF technology is used to create genetically "perfect" children, and those who aren't conceived through IVF technology are considered inferior.

I suspect this post may be a bit controversial and I know it will be a bit long, so I'll continue my ramblings below...

Continue reading "Rant about perfectionism"

Posted by Tim and Jo at 10:25 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

August 1, 2007

First public comment!

I've been hoping for awhile that I'm actually showing. Sometimes its hard to resist not patting my belly in public so people know that its babies not beer inside! Though I imagine with where we're living now, there are some people who'll pat their beer. "Good Michelob!" "Aww, that's a good Budweiser!"

As were leaving our local Walmart the other night, an elderly black employee checked our receipt, and said, "And when is your family getting here?" When we told him our twins were due in November, he gave us a huge smile like we had just given him a present.

He then told us that he grew up in a family of 20 (!) (his father married twice), and he had two sets of twin brothers. As we left, he told me to keep being careful, and I assured him I would.

I read about so many rude pregnancy comments (especially pregnancy with twin comments), so I was really pleased that my first comment was so kind.

Posted by Tim and Jo at 11:56 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack