Happy Valentine's Day -- with teeth

Golly gee, it's hard to sit down and write as often as I used to.  I think there are two reasons for this.

One is Alex.  When I was at my most prolific during the first few months of "Raising Alexandra," Alex was largely non-mobile.  Once she got active, and mobile, my writing trailed off -- faced with a choice of interacting with her or sitting down and crafting some paragraphs, the writing slowed down.  And she certainly hasn't gotten any less active or less mobile since then.

The other is work.  When I have an argument to prepare for, I try to be as single-minded as I can in the weeks leading up to the argument date.  Of course, I have other cases and other work obligations going on, but even with those, I try to push as much and as many of those obligations to the side as the argument approaches.  That means any extracurricular writing -- like this blog -- dries up completely.

With that in mind, let's review my schedule over the past six months or so.

September 1, 2009:  Get call telling us we have a new daughter.
September 8, 2009:  Pick up said new daughter, Ft. Worth, TX.
October 6, 2009:  Federal Circuit argument, Washington, DC.
November 4, 2009:  Federal Circuit argument, Houston, TX.
December 10, 2009:  Federal Circuit argument, Washington, DC.
December 14, 2009:  Argument in federal district court, Boston, MA.
January 4, 2010:  Federal Circuit argument, Washington, DC.
February 2, 2010:  Federal Circuit argument, Washington, DC.

So since Ella-Anne arrived, almost six months ago, I have either been preparing for, presenting, or recovering from presenting, arguments.  No wonder my last entry was over a month ago.

But, thankfully, I have March off from arguments (I should be back at it in April and May, however), so I'm back at the keyboard today.  Let's recap.

First of all, Happy Valentine's Day to one and all (or, as one of my Facebook friends/work colleagues describes it, Happy Singles Awareness Day).  Happy Valentine's Day especially to my bride of almost 10 years, the preternaturally youthful Jane Castanias. 

It is a testament to the strength of our relationship -- or, perhaps, to the size of our house -- that we enjoyed being stranded at home from the evening of Thursday, February 4, through the morning of Friday, February 12, thanks to a 30" snowstorm followed only a few days later by a blizzard containing another 14" of snow.  Not once did it seem like one of us was about to drive the other one nuts. 

Alex, on the other hand, occasionally tested our sanity.  At one point she was so wound up about being trapped inside that I took her down to the basement and told her to run laps.  "I'm exercising!" she repeatedly pronounced.  "I'm exercising!"

Ella-Anne continues to be the calmest human being I've ever met, wth the only challenge being her recent teething.  As I noted in my December 23 post, Alex got her first tooth around March 1; Ella-Anne's first two have already emerged (both on the bottom front, like Alex's first two).  It appears that she's getting another one, if saliva production is any indicator.  Despite her overall easygoing nature, though, we are beginning to see signs of a temper.  It appears that Ella-Anne will wait out just about any inonvenience, but only up to a point.  Then she just gets pi--, ahem, ticked off.  "Mad Baby" is what Jane calls it; I call it Wet Hen with a Touch of Evil.

She's also started solid foods in the last couple of weeks.  That is, if you consider pureed sweet potatoes mixed with formula to be a "solid." 

Beyond that, she's talking up a blue streak right now.  Most of it is gibberish, but it really seems like she's trying to communicate.  To me, it sounds like "Aggle Flaggle Klabble.  Blaggle Plabble.  Lumpy Flappy.  Snurp." 

The four of us just finished Valentine's Day dinner about an hour ago.  (With all due respect to those who ate out in restaurants with their sweethearts tonight, Valentine's Day is Amateur Night for Eaters in the same way that New Year's Eve is Amateur Night for Drinkers.)  I askd Alex this morning what we should make for Mommy for Valentine's Day dinner; she thought about it for a minute (with an audible "Hmmmmmm"), and pronounced "Chicken Pot Pie!"  Now, to the best of my knowledge, Alex has never had a Chicken Pot Pie in her three-and-a-half years.  But that was what she said, and since (as is my motto) I JUST WORK HERE, I went to the store to purchase the ingredients for the requested Chicken Pot Pie. 

And some other stuff.

First course:  Butternut squash ravioli with sage brown butter:

Second course:  Chicken pot pie with a puff pastry cap:

Third course:  Maple souffle served with a maple sabayon sauce and whipped cream:

A la Iron Chef America, "The Secret Ingredient is . . . TIME."

But you don't want food photos, you want GIRLS!  GIRLS!  GIRLS!

Here, Alex prepares to brave the Oakton tundra on February 8 (after first storm but before the blizzard):

Here she is outside in the driveway (sticking out her tongue at the camera is a favorite pasttime):

Ella-Anne is sitting up with almost no help:

One of my favorites -- Ella-Anne asleep in Mommy's arms, face-planted into her toy lamb:

Alex, in her costume of alter ego "Clara," attempts to hold her baby sister:

The aftermath of Ella-Anne's first solid food (oatmeal):

Finally, allow me this observation.  I now have irrefutable proof that men are just larger boys.  As I was driving to the store this morning to obtain the supplies for Valentine's Day dinner, I found myself feeling sad that the 40+" of snow was cleared from the roads, and was melting (somewhat) in the bright sun.  My sadness was directly related to the fact that when the snow disappears from the roads like this, there's no way school will be cancelled.  After a few moments of this melancholy, I realized:  YOU'RE ALMOST FORTY-FIVE YEARS OLD.  YOU DON'T GO TO SCHOOL.  YOU WORK WHETHER THE OFFICE IS CLOSED OR NOT.  YOU DRIVE A REAR-WHEEL-DRIVE CAR THAT SUCKS IN THE SNOW.  YOU CAN'T TAKE MUCH MORE OF BEING COOPED UP IN THE HOUSE.  YOU WANT THE SNOW TO MELT AND THE ROADS TO BE CLEAR.

Yet, despite that obvious intellectual truth, my visceral, emotional self was the same 13-year-old boy sitting in the Northview Junior High School library, sketching out what the forecasted "ice topped with snow topped with ice" would do to the roads the next day.  The same 13-year-old boy who got up early on potential snow days to listen to WIBC-AM 1070 for the school-closing announcements, hoping to hear "Washington Township Schools, closed" so that he could go back to bed without guilt.

Of course, my wife would tell you that she already knew I was 13 years old.  She knew that from my sense of humor. 

It was so cold in Central Park today, I saw a squirrel winterizing his nuts.

Christmas, RSV, and Papou

"Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a very common virus that leads to mild, cold-like symptoms in adults and older healthy children. It can be more serious in young babies, especially to those in certain high-risk groups."  "Young babies" includes Ella-Anne, and it's been a bit of a whirlwind these last few weeks because of that.

Right after Christmas, Alex was sniffling a fair amount, and coughing occasionally.  At that time, my biggest fear was that I was going to get sick while preparing for my January 6 oral argument for DIRECTV.  What we didn't bank on was a respiratory infection that was reducing Ella-Anne's "O2 sats" (I thought I would only hear that term on "ER" and other medical shows) down to 92, and had her on the cusp of hospitalization.  Fortunately for us, antibiotics, repeated nebulizer treatments, and our outstanding pediatricians kept us from the ER, and now Ella-Anne is on the mend.

(For the record, I did get her cold, the day before my argument, but adrenaline and Vitamin C powered me through, and we achieved this victory, only two days after the argument -- for all practical purposes ending a five-year patent battle in which the plaintiff's suit at the beginning threatened the very existence of DIRECTV, and ended with all of its patent claims invalidated by the courts and by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.)

But Christmas, Christmas, Christmas.  Ella-Anne got a new bouncer-seat:

And Alex got Cinderella's Castle:

And some new Disney Princess jammies:

And a Tiana dress (from "The Princess and the Frog"):
 

 
In which she danced with her Daddy:
 

 
Until she fell asleep:
 

 
Mommy got a sous vide machine:
 

 
In which she made this delicious beef tenderloin for Christmas dinner:
 

 
Which she served at this table:
 

 
With these girls (and Daddy, and Papou) present with Mommy:
 

 

 
It was the best Christmas ever.
 

 
One of the best parts of the best Christmas ever was having Papou with us for a whole month (December 2 to January 2).  He'd probably still be here if he didn't miss his doggie, Brittie.  We look forward to having him back for another long stay. 

Snow! Snow! Snow! and Ho! Ho! Ho!

Mostly this post is here to remind people that I'm still here, and writing.  That is, when I'm not writing briefs or presenting or appearing for oral arguments.  Seems like that's all I've been doing the last few months, and after an almost-all-nighter last night (finally got to sleep close to 4 a.m.) working on our summary-judgment motion in this case, I'm officially home for the holidays.

Home for the holidays.  It's what we're doing this year, for the second year in a row, though this year we've been graced by the presence of Alex and Ella-Anne's Papou, my Dad, who has been here since December 2. Even though I've had a nuttier-than-usual schedule, it's been a joy to have him here and to allow Alex and Ella-Anne the gift of unlimited, unrushed time around him.  Alex and Dad (Papou) share a love of lemonade, and they each now have a glass at dinner; it's such a heart-gladdening moment every night when the Lemonade Twins "cheers" their glasses -- Dad his glass tumbler of lemonade, and Alex her Cinderella drinking cup of lemonade.  They're like conspirators, those two.

A Home for the Holidays.  That's the musical holiday special that is on CBS right now.  It's lots of big musical stars (Faith Hill, Carrie Underwood, Mary J. Blige, Reba McEntire, Shakira, etc.).  The CBS Press Release says it is "an entertainment special celerating the joys of adoption," and the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is one of the sponsors/producers.  (Dave Thomas, the late founder of Wendy's, was himself adopted, and was quite the adoption activist all of his life; his eponymous Foundation carries on that work.)

Home for the weekend.  That's what we were, this past weekend, when we were blanketed with over 20 inches of snow, and (briefly) under a blizzard warning. 

Here's our back deck, towards the end of the snowfall -- to give you a sense of the quantity of snow that fell Friday night and Saturday.

And here are some cute photos from Alex's and Mommy's frolic in the snow.  (Ella-Anne was decidedly not interested in being out in the snow and cold; her sense of panic completely devoured any sense of wonder she might otherwise have had.)

Getting out of the home for the holidays.  After being stranded for about three days thanks to this snow, I suggested to Jane that we take Alex and Ella-Anne out to see Santa Claus, and to have lunch at the mall.  Surprisingly, the lines to see Santa were not terrible (not like last year's just-walk-on-up-and-sit-on-Santa's-lap experience, however), though the mall traffic was pretty bad since the last weekend of Christmas shopping had been snowed out for most of us.  More importantly, Alex did not cry or shrink from Santa this year; she walked right on up, sat on his lap, talked to him, wished him "Merry Christmas," and gave him a hug.  And she gave us all a sweet smile for the photos (instead of making a twisted face for the camera); I attribute that to my promise that if she gave Santa a "sweet smile," she and I could make silly faces at lunch at Lebanese Taverna.  Photographic evidence of all of that appears below.

Now for a bit about Ella-Anne:  As of her last doctor's check up about 10 days ago, she is 12 pounds.  She's still a bit smaller than Alex was -- the blog archives tell us that Alex was 12 lbs., 11 oz., and a bit over 24 inches long as of December 18, 2006.  Just for grins, here's a picture of Alex and Jane from December 2006:

And here's one of Ella-Anne at about the same age, three years later:

If I didn't understand genetics, from thse photos I'd swear these two were biologically related.  As it is, they're definitely related -- similar demeanors at their early ages being the most striking similarity (other than the appearance thing).

Since I was going back through the old blogs, let's just preview some of the likely highlights and estimated dates for the next few months, if Alex's experiences are any predictors of Ella-Anne's:

• January 16, 2010:  First cereal (rice?).
• January 26, 2010:  First vegetables (sweet potatoes?).
• Mid-February, 2010:  Adoption finalization in Ft. Worth.
• March 1, 2010:  First tooth.
• March 27, 2010:  First Indian food.

Last word for now:  Alex can make Ella-Anne laugh like nobody's business.  This evening, Alex was kneeling in front of her, bouncing up and down, and this made Ella-Anne belly laugh.  Big chortles.  Out of control, like the first time you saw Jonathan Winters or Robin Williams on TV.  I don't have that power, Mommy doesn't have that power.  Only Big Sister can do it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So here we are in beautiful Wichita, Kansas, at the Hutchinson ranch, with three cousins and Alex slowing down after dinner, trying to watch "The Princess Bride" despite several skips in the DVD.  The kids are winding down enough that it isn't as big a deal to them as it is to the adults, who are profoundly disappointed every time the DVD stalls out on us.

This is a week of rest for me, or as close to rest as I'm allowed to get these days.  I do have several projects in my briefcase, including a couple of briefs and an oral argument I've got to get ready for, but I catch a few hours of work here and there before everyone else gets up, or while Alex and Ella-Anne are having their naps.  Other than that, it's family time here in the 'Ta. 

And because it's family time, Ella-Anne doesn't lack for laps to sit in, or grandparents to hold her while she's having a "ba-ba" (bottle of formula).  Alex is in perpetual motion, chasing or being chased by her cousins Sam, Noah, and Jill or -- when the cousins are at their home -- walking around the house going "Where are the cousins?  Where did they go?"

Jill and Alex, who are about the same age (Jill was four months old, I think, when Alex was born), were playing a hysterical game earlier today.  Jill would chase Alex into the living room, and Alex would shake a finger at Jill and say "Go away, Mommy!" They both would squeal with laughter, and then reverse roles -- Alex would chase Jill from the living room into Papa's office, and Jill would turn around and say to Alex, "Go away, Mommy!"  Repeat until bored.  This was minutes of fun for the girls.

Last night, Alex played another game of her own making with Jane.  Jane was sitting in a wing-back chair in the living room, and Alex placed a wooden box that holds blocks at her feet.  Alex would kneel behind the box, in somewhat of a penitent pose, and ask, "What should I do now, Teacher Mommy?"  Mommy would say something like "I think you should give Nana a hug and a kiss," and Alex would follow instructions, giving Nana a hug and a kiss, and then returning to the box of penitence, where she would repeat, "What should I do now, Teacher Mommy?" 

Jane loved this game.  She was very sorry when it ended, because it was the only time Alex followed instructions 100%.  I believe we will be playing "Teacher Mommy" when we get back home.

Since it is the season, there are many things to be thankful for.  Jane and I are thankful most of all for each other, and the fact that we were in the right places at the right times ten and a half years ago.  We are thankful for our families, and their extended circles of loved ones.  We are grateful for our own surprisingly vast circle of friends, hundreds of whom are evidenced on our Facebook accounts alone.  We are grateful for our own health, and for that of our two daughters.  We are grateful as anything for those two little girls, Alex and Ella-Anne, who have made our lives richer with every ba-ba and every diaper.  We are thankful for the Gladney Adoption Agency, for Mamaw Peggy and Donna, the women who took such wonderful care of our daughters before we could arrive to pick them up and bring them into our lives.  Personally, I am grateful for Jane, and the wonderful mother and wife that she is.

And I am grateful that a bunch of insane comedy writers in the 1970s decided that the Pinedale Shopping Mall should be bombed with live turkeys.  On that note:  Happy Thanksgiving.

Mommy and Daddy go to dinner

One of the unintended advantages of having a six-year delay in starting our family was that Jane and I had many opportunities to discuss, and learn how much we agreed on, our values and theories of parenting.  For example:

• We are not short-order cooks.  After you're out of the baby-food phase, you'll eat what the entire family is having.
• We won't talk "baby talk" to you.  We'll use real words and expect you to learn them and use them, too.
• Mommy and Daddy will have regular "date nights."  This means that you will see, on a weekly basis, tangible evidence that Mommy and Daddy -- not you -- are the centerpiece of this family, and that our relationship is a rock on which you can rely.

This last one is what I want to write about today.  Saturday was Jane's birthday, and we managed to get one of the hardest dinner reservations in town -- a table at Komi in Washington, D.C.  In case you're interested, here's a review of Komi, which ranked as one of the few four-star places in the DC area this past year.  While another of our credos is that our children will be exposed to nice restaurants and learn how to dine like little ladies, it does not follow that they get to go along with us on every restaurant visit.

Komi is amazing.  No menu.  Just twenty-one courses, leisurely paced one after the other.  I probably can't recall every single course, but I'll describe a few of them.  We started with a perfect little rectangle (smaller and thinner than a domino) of raw kampachi, served with a little turbot broth.  Then a similar-sized pice of fluke, which looked similar but was a contrast to the kampachi in flavor and texture.  Then a silver-dollar-sized slice of a huge scallop, served in the scallop shell with a tangy cream (Greek yogurt-based?) on the bottom and a couple of slices of black truffle on top.  At some point later was the chef's one experiment with "molecular gastronomy," a "Caesar salad" which was a warm, but not-quite-crisp ball that looked like a hush puppy, but when bitten into released a warm explosion of flavor -- but for the temperature of the liquid inside, the flavor was unmistakably Romaine lettuce, Parmesan cheese, a bit of anchovy, etc. 

One of the earlier courses deserves special treatment, even by the standards that Komi had already set for itself by the first several courses.  A warm Medjool date, hollowed out and stuffed with Marscapone cheese, and sprinkled with a few grains of sea salt.  I am having trouble finding the words to express just how good this was.   It was sweet and chewy (the date), rich and creamy (the cheese), and salty and crunchy (the sea salt), all at once. 

The main event also deserves a paragraph of its own.  A slow-roasted goat shoulder, topped with sea salt that had been infused with fresh oregano so that the salt itself was green.  Served with homemade and griddled pita bread wedges, and a series of accompaniments -- tsaziki, pickled cabbage, eggplant puree, a habanero sauce, and more of the oregano salt.  Unlike most of the courses that had gone before, this was not a single bite, or a few bites, but a hearty counterpoint to what had gone before.  Not every table got the goat; some got suckling pig.  I'm glad that we got the goat shoulder; the next time we go -- and there will be a next time -- we'll make a request for the suckling pig.

So after three-plus hours at dinner, we headed back home, where we found our big little girl STILL AWAKE, long past her bedtime.  Another good visible reminder for Alex:  We may go have our Mommy-Daddy dinners, but we always come home.

"The inefficiency of the fork": More pictures

A couple of new ones of Ella-Anne, including some big smiles, and a few from Sunday's NOT "High" Tea at the Ritz-Carlton, including Alex's effort to face-plant into a chocolate dessert to avoid the inefficiency of the fork, and Two Daddies Dancing.

"Perfectly Floppy Bacon and Other Impressive Feats"

Jane's dear friend Lori Heagler has started a blog, which she's dubbed Perfectly Floppy Bacon and Other Impressive Feats.  (Lori's my dear friend, too, but Jane brought her to the marriage, and so I think of her more like "dowry."  It's a good thing I like Lori, too, because Jane's dowry didn't contain any actual cash.) 

I'm creating a separate blog entry here to tell all of my three or four readers about it, because Lori is wicked funny.  She's also the mom to Ben (8) and Lucy (6), and she is the ringleader of a pack of women she calls the "Boozey Mommies."

This is Lucy, Lori, and Ben.

And this is what Lori is going to be writing about (in her own words):

Perfectly Floppy Bacon and Other Impressive Feats will be a glimpse of Heagler Family life – a place where I don’t have to reduce my musings to a Facebook status containing 420 characters or less or a Note that can only be viewed by my Facebook friends. To those of you who encouraged me to do this, I hope I won’t let you down and I hope you’ll never be sorry you said this was a good idea. Be careful what you wish for!

If there’s anyone out there reading who doesn’t know us, read on and come back often. You’ll know the Heaglers before you know it.

Perfectly Floppy Bacon and Other Impressive Feats will be about messages written in the dust on my end-tables, raising kids and drinking (a lot of) wine. About “going Southern”, my beloved Boozey Mommies, the horrors of dating as a 40+-year-old single mom, trying on hats, the rocks in my pockets, pick-me-up hugs and never-minding. It will be about tough love, hope, lots and lots of laughter and maybe a little inspiration along the way. And it will sometimes be about autism and its impact on our family.

If you like reading this blog, you'll love Lori's.

Oh, and as for news from our house, on Saturday the four of us went to the local telecast of the Monon Bell game between Wabash and DePauw (the righteous triumphed, 32-19, and the Bell resumes its appropriate place of honor on the Wabash campus).  Alex repeatedly yelled "Let's Go Wabash!" at the top of her teeny lungs, and lots of our Wabash friends got to meet Ella-Anne for the first time. 

On Sunday, a bunch of Jane's friends hosted an afternoon tea in Ella-Anne's honor at the Ritz-Carlton at Tysons Corner -- perfectly elegant with a single huge exception noted by Mr. Language Person:  The menu for their afternoon tea service (classical English tea service with dainty finger sandwiches and lots of pastries) repeatedly referred to these as "High Tea Selections."  WRONG!  "High Tea" is not like "High Church," marked by formalities.  High tea is a singularly inelegant event -- a workingman's dinner eaten (with tea) in the very late afternoons.  It is sometimes referred to as "meat tea."  It is not what they are serving in the afternoons at the Ritz-Carlton.

To wit, this is from the UK Tea Council website:

While tea was part of the staple diet of the poor, among the rich tea-drinking was evolving into an elaborate social occasion. Afternoon teas probably had their roots in the ladies tea-parties of the seventeenth centuries, but evolved during the eighteenth century into something of a national institution. Tradition has it that afternoon tea was 'invented' by Anna Maria, the wife of the seventh Duke of Bedford, who in 1841 started drinking tea and having a bite to eat in the mid-afternoon, to tide her over during the long gap between lunch (eaten at about 1 o'clock) and dinner (eaten at around 7 o'clock). This swiftly developed into a social occasion, and soon the Duchess was inviting guests to join her for afternoon tea at 5 o'clock. It did not become instantly popular elsewhere though, partly because in fashionable circles dinner was eaten earlier, leaving less of a gap to be filled by afternoon tea. But by the 1860s the fashion for afternoon tea had become widespread. Such teas were elegant affairs, with tea drunk from the best china and small amounts of food presented perfectly on little china plates. On offer might be bread and butter, scones and cakes, and sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

Contemporary manuals on etiquette and good housekeeping are full of advice on how to conduct a correct afternoon tea. The idea of needing an instruction book in order to enjoy a cup of tea and a biscuit with some friends seems rather alarming these days, but although nineteenth century afternoon teas were elaborate affairs from our point of view, in those days they were considered relatively informal occasions. Invitations were issued verbally or by note, and rather than attending for the entire duration guests were free to pop in when it suited them and likewise leave when they wanted to. The hostess would pour the tea, but it was the responsibility of the men to hand the cups round. If there were no men present, this job fell to the daughters of the hostess or other young women present (goodness know what happened if there were no men and no daughters available!). There was a fashion for women to wear tea gowns, but these were softer and less restrictive than evening gowns, and it was not always deemed necessary for women to wear gloves. Nonetheless many did, and the author of The Etiquette of Modern Society points out that a thoughtful hostess should always provide biscuits with tea, since these can be eaten more easily than sandwiches without removing one's gloves.

Some poorer households also adopted the practice of afternoon tea, and in some areas women pooled their resources and equipment in order to make such occasions affordable. But more common among the working classes was 'high tea'. During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, when most people worked in agriculture, the working classes tended to have the main meal of their day at midday, with a much lighter supper late in the evening. But after the industrial revolution, more and more people were employed for long shifts in factories or mines, and hot midday meals were thus less convenient. They were also not appropriate for the increasing numbers of children who were at school during the day. The custom developed of having a high tea in the late afternoon, at the end of the working day, consisting of strong tea, and hearty, hot food. Unlike afternoon tea, high tea was the main meal of the day, rather than a stop-gap between lunch and dinner.

Get it, Ritz-Carlton?  You're better than that.