12/9/07 Katrina eats

When my nephew was a baby, he plagued my sister for months with barely eating anything, compounded by numerous food allergies. I have a friend whose baby decided to challenge his firsttime parents by not eating. There's something very fundamental about seeing your baby eat -- or not. Even for those of us who have been very lucky in escaping any serious food challenges (and I'm more than lucky, as I was blessed with Julian), there's still a sense of victory and success in seeing your baby swallow.

Katrina crowned me Great Mom on that one today, not that I actually had anything to do with it. She's always spit out banana pieces, until today when I held a banana for her and she bit off pieces with her fledgling teeth. She ate almost 4 clementines, stuffing the pieces into her mouth and demanding more faster than I could peel and cut them up. She had a huge bag of Cheerios at the Y this morning, after a hefty oatmeal breakfast. Post-nap snack included a bowl of cauliflower, then rice and broccoli. Dinner was 5 meatballs (!Mom Alert! Trader Joe's Party Mini Meatballs -- kids LOVE THEM!) and spaghetti. When I left Katrina with Dave last night (took the boys to a party), he was startled that she finished all the food I'd prepared for her. Can 20 pounds be far off?

I really wanted to go to the BMX park today to watch the boys, but Katrina pooped out right as I was ready to leave. Boy, when she crumbles and needs a nap, it's an emergency. I didn't mind the quiet time at home though.

But, lucky me, Dave text-messaged our friend Paul, who not only lives a few blocks from the BMX park, but is a really good photographer with a really good camera. Paul had a moment, so he got some really good photos of the boys there.







And if that wasn't enough, after returning from the BMX park, the boys spent most of the afternoon riding their bicycles up and down the block. They were egged on by a very nice neighbor, who lives just three doors down with her husband, yet I've only talked to her a few times. She's a very serious cyclist, a modest one who I had to probe to discover that a training ride to her is 200 miles, like from home to Monterey and back! Holy Derailleur Batman! Anyway, our nice neighbor spent a lot of time riding up and down the block with the boys, "racing," sort of.

Back to the grind tomorrow. It was such a nice weekend, I don't want it to be over. Though really, it wasn't all fun and games, since the inability to do things during the week forces me to waste precious weekend time taking care of things on weekends.

But starting another week of ultra-early mornings, hours of driving and hectic dinners isn't what's weighing on me. It's an identity crisis. Who am I? In the past, it was dancer, motorcyclist, engineer, and, somewhat against my will, writer. But am I any of those things now? I never asked myself the question before I had kids. And perhaps now, I never need to ask the question again, because above all else, despite anything and everything that I do, I'm Mother. One who's going through the motions of being an engineer, and wondering why.

12/9/07