On today’s Oprah show about food in America, Omnivore’s Dilemma author Michael Pollan discussed his 7 rules for eating, which he even condensed into 7 words: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”

Drex and I consider ourselves foodies.  Whenever possible, we buy our produce at farmer’s markets.  We eat lots of salad.  We flavor our food with fresh herbs.  We prepare foods that are in season.  But are we raising a foodie?  Let’s see what stuff Sonya has put in her mouth today:

Rule #1: Don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients or ingredients a third grader can’t pronounce.

What is Sonya eating?  An original Baby Mum-Mum cracker, a favorite among babies in her play group.  I have the box on my lap.  The ingredients are:

1. japonica rice
2. sugar
3. skim milk powder (imported from New Zealand)
4. sea salt

All desserts except ice cream and the occasional fistful of gummy bears (and I mean all other desserts: cakes, cookies, brownies, etcetera): must be homemade from scratch. Not from a box. Not ready-bake. (And not from the local boulangerie like the galette des rois seen in the previous post).  We must put in the effort to make the junk food that we consume.

Zen moment:  We have to earn it to eat it.  Thank you, Michael Pollan!

Last weekend, we had brunch with some of our friends, mainly as an excuse to make pancakes and mimosas.  While out buying ingredients, I passed our local artisanal boulangerie and discovered that they were selling a special dessert in honor of Epiphany, la galette des rois : a giant brioche filled with an almond-flavored custard (called frangipane) with a little porcelain king (known as la fève) baked inside it.  The lucky person who finds the king gets to wear the paper crown that comes with the cake and be King of the Day. 

According to Jérôme, who is from the south of France, which may be the birthplace of this tradition, a child under the table gets to decide the order of people to select a slice of galette.  We put Sonya under the table and Drex “interpreted” her selections for the brunch party. I immediately started rummaging through my slice for la fève, but did not find it.

No one found the king, actually, and there were two remaining slices of galette.  I decided to stage a coup d’état and rummage around the remains to secure the crown for myself.

Unfortunately, the King still had to do dishes after the meal, but somehow, wearing a paper crown and thinking of myself as a King made the whole winter day merry. So I’ve kept the crown, flimsy though it might be, for tough days when I need a boost and need to feel like I’m in control.

We live around the corner from an indoor pool that offers swimming classes for infants beginning at six months, called Étoile de Mer or Star of the Sea. For Christmas, we signed Sonya up for Daddy/daughter classes and bought her an adorable pink leopard print swimsuit with a bow in the front, and to wear underneath it, a cloth swimming diaper with Little Nemo fish printed all over it.


Drex is a great swimmer and he taught me how to swim when we were in college.  Now, although I’m not exactly a dolphin, I have confidence, rather than paralyzing fear, when entering a pool.  If I had to, I could make it from one end to the other.  My struggle to learn swimming as an adult made me determined that, no matter what, Sonya should never know a time when she was unable to swim.  I want the water to seem, like it does for Drex, a natural environment for her to be.


Zen moment: [Taken from a quote I read somewhere] Swimming: From the outside looking in, you can’t understand it.  From the inside looking out, you can’t explain it.


During her first class, Sonya was very brave (braver than I was during my first swimming lesson, where I clutched desperately to the edge of the pool, afraid I’d drown, even though my feet touched the bottom in the shallow end).  Drex talked to our beautiful girl in a soothing voice, held her close to his chest.  She dipped her legs in the water, played with a floatie fish, got sprayed on the legs with a watering can, and although she got scared of the loud pool sounds and getting splashed by other Étoiles, she gave the experience a chance.  She endured the whole half-hour lesson.  Well, at least she held it together until it was time to go into the dressing room echo-chamber.  


That’s when, as Drex and I like to say, the wheels came off.  We say that because the Sonya Good Humor Wagon becomes off-kilter.  She flaps her arms and screams like the end of the world might be imminent. 


Somehow, Drex switched the frantic, wriggling Sonya out of her swimsuit in the men’s dressing room and handed our little Star back to me.  I nursed her for comfort. That’s right.  Six months and still breastfeeding. Woohoo! I’m going to try to make it to Sonya’s first birthday.

First, baby can hold her own Beaba spoon and feed herself rice cereal because she is almost six months old. Anyway, a person has to learn by making a mess and poking herself in the eye a few times.

Hmmm… now that her tummy is full, baby has to relax, stretch out. Luckily, she got two new wrist rattlers for Christmas, so now baby has an animal on every appendage to make noise as she flaps her arms and wriggles her legs.

Now, all warmed up, baby sits in her walker to patrol the living room while mommy admires nearby. Sonya plays with her “Rutherford Toy.” 

It looks a little like a Rutherford model of an atom with orange and yellow electron discs — think of the symbol for atomic energy. Interesting trivia fact: Ernest Rutherford was Professor of Experimental Physics at McGill from 1898 to 1907.

For Christmas, Troy and Ivy gave me Entre Nous: A Woman’s Guide to Finding Her Inner French Girl by Debra Ollivier. In Chapter 3, a section called “Children and Family” begins with this passage:

When I returned to the States for the first time after giving birth in France, I was astonished: A vast kingdom of baby merchandise was at my disposal as a new mother, entire stores dedicated to breast pumps, musical potties, modular high chairs, high-performance bibs and child-security devices for every conceivable wall, door, drawer, toilet, ledge, and edge.

Since Sonya was born, Drex and I have bought her four toys: a rubber giraffe, a blue sleigh bell rattle, a plastic walker, and a Jolly Jumper.  She has no nursery, no crib, no separate play room. 


We are so “minimalist,” in fact, that she would not have made it home from the hospital if Dida had not brought clothes, Auntie Melissa and Uncle Justin hadn’t bought a car seat, and Grandmama hadn’t come with a changing table and playpen.


Sonya benefits from being the first grandchild on both sides, with an abundance of loving and generous grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends who keep her supplied with playthings and outfits — that we’re too negligent to supply. So it’s really the best of both worlds.  I get to be the French girl and leave the “overindulgence” to all the Americans in Sonya’s life.  Someone please buy her a musical potty for her first birthday. I haven’t seen any in Canada.


Christmas was really fantastic, because we now have a baby food making machine, a box full of colorful infant toys, and a drawer full of cutesy clothes to last her through her first birthday and half-way to her second. So I can spend my husband’s income spoiling Sonya in a different way. The French Canadian way. With attention. 


Montréal is the place to be for mom & baby anything. You name it. Dance class, fitness class, jogging class, yoga class, music class, massage class, sign language class… Play groups. Workshops. The list goes on. There are so many activities a new mom can do with babies even just a few weeks old!


Even though Sonya won’t remember what we’re doing together now, I think she and I are forging a strong mother-daughter bond. Sonya is developing a sense of adventure, a willingness to meet new people, and to explore unfamiliar environments. 


For Christmas, we bought her a pink leopard-print swimsuit, matching sunglasses, and Daddy-daughter swim lessons at the indoor pool around the corner. Sonya is going to look like a movie star. I promise pictures. With my new portrait lens.

Melissa and Justin got me a portrait lens and UV filter for Christmas.  WOW! The Canon EF 50 mm f1.8 lens.  It allows me to take pictures like a near-sighted person sees: sharp subject, blurry background.  Photography is coming dangerously close to becoming a hobby now.

Here is Sgt. Pepper, Troy and Ivy’s new chihuahua.  She weighs less than two pounds and enjoys chasing a toy nicknamed the pink squirrel.