Broken Nights Ten weeks today and all is well. It is fun to be able to specify the length my pregnancy with two digits instead of just one. And I am really looking forward to the end of my first trimester, when the risk of miscarriage goes way down. I am feeling great, as long as I don't count the exhaustion and the on and off morning sickness. Or actually all day sickness. Now about the broken nights. Everybody knows that with a newborn, there will be middle of the night feedings and diaper changes. I think Jane, my 2yo has figured it out too and has decided to start training me for them. So last night, she spent a lot of time crying and crying and crying. I am still not sure what was wrong. The problem is that she isn't very verbal yet, and she just wasn't able to tell me what was the matter. Nothing seemed to work. I tried reassuring her, hugging her, talking to her, asking her why she cried, nursing her, giving her tylenol (since I thought she might have pain somewhere), but she kept crying on and off. My husband finally got her calmed down the first time. Then when I was just in a nice, deep sleep, it started again. I went over to their bed and tried calming her down again. No way. After a while she indicated she wanted to get out of the room. I hoped she wanted to come in our bed, so I didn't have to get up every time she cried, but no, she wanted to go downstairs. She was bummed to find out that everything was dark and silent downstairs, maybe she thought we were having a party there without inviting her? Back upstairs with her in my arms, now she wanted to come to our bed. Sleep for another half hour or so, crying again, and now she wanted back to her own bed. Carried her over there. Repeat this sequence a few times, apart from the going downstairs, she didn't want to go there anymore, but we did switch beds a few times. In between, I had to nurse the baby in our bed. And I even tried getting some sleep in too! This morning, she was fine, apart from coming down with a cold. Not even a bad one, mostly a runny nose, no fever or coughing. So maybe she didn't feel well because of that. But I sure had a classical broken night this way! I hope she will sleep better tonight! Usually she wakes up once and comes over to our bed and that's it, this pattern is unusual for her, so I really hope it was just a one time thing! Pregnancy wise, I got a real strong craving this week. One of my on line friends mentioned brownies in a chat and somehow I immediately decided I wanted those too. Really wanted them!!! Wanted them NOW! So I used the brownie recipe from the back of my King Arthur flour, which claimed to be 'The Easiest Brownies You Will Ever Bake' and tried them. Now you have to know that I am from the Netherlands, where people are way too civilized to eat decadent food like brownies. So this was the first time ever I was going to try to make them. So I needed some experimenting. One thing was that I didn't have the 9x9 pan they said to use, but only an 8x8 instead. So I decided to compensate by baking for longer. Also, I added an extra egg, to add some protein and give it at least a semblance of healthiness. They turned out reasonably well, and we all enjoyed them. Then today, Tara, my 3yo told me she wanted brownies for breakfast! Hey, my on line friend must have influenced her somehow, via cyber space, because that's what they did earlier this week. They had brownies with ice cream and chocolate sauce for breakfast. Since I still had my brownie craving, I made up another batch of brownies with her. We ate them for snack, with ice cream. I think I baked them a little too long though, and I had a hard time getting the sides loosened. The rest tasted great though. The big problem was Tim, my 6yo. He is very attached to predictable routines and we had never eaten brownies with ice cream before. So he totally freaked out, very spectacularly. I mean, he could just have said 'no thanks', but instead he broke down and SCREAMED!!!!! I ended up giving him ice cream in a separate bowl and that finally calmed him down. Now I am on a quest for the perfect brownie. I don't want it too gooey, but not too dry either, I want them to stay together, but also get out of the pan easily and I want them to be easy to be eaten as finger food. I should be able to cut them into perfect squares. So my family will be eating brownies for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a while, or maybe I'll take pity on them and bake a little less :-) I will have some internet friends over this weekend and was planning on making a big pan of soup for the lunch on both days, and suggested to them that I could put brownies in as croutons, but they didn't seem too thrilled about that idea. Hmmm, strange.... Page design by mabear | Send email to Karen | Page last updated: Dec 29, 2001