food. according to me.

Return to the Kitchen

The baby arrived three weeks ago. We named her Finch, for no other reason than that we like how it sounds. She gave us quite a start, insisting on being born five weeks early. And since then it's been about sleeping and pooping and — of course — eating, around the clock.

Finch's appetite has been our primary focus, trying to get her to eat regularly in order to gain weight as she approached full-term status. We've been up at all hours, breastfeeding, bottle-feeding, finger feeding. I am obsessed with her intake in milliliters and her output in poop.

Amid all of this — the surprise at being parents when we thought we had a month left to prepare and enjoy the silence, recovering from a birth more exciting (and more medical) than we'd planned, and focusing on the care of our [adorable] daughter — The Squeeze and I have had to eat, too.

In the beginning it was easy. I ate, ravenously, whatever was brought to me in the hospital, while Papa ran to the third floor cafeteria for mini pizzas, Voodoo doughnuts, and whatever else was quick and satisfying for a man needed for baby- and mama-care 24 hours a day. When we got back home it was less easy, but within a few days we had helpful guests who were shopping and cooking for us and laying down supplies in our fridge that would last after they left. Friends and family came to visit, brought Thai and Mexican foods, pizzas and chilis, pies and quickbreads. I have never in all of my life been so happy to see take out containers.

And now we are on our own for a few days. Finch is three weeks old and our feeding schedule has relaxed somewhat, allowing for more time to nap and fold laundry, for making grocery-runs, for writing blog posts. Today The Squeeze made peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies. He put these little crackly puffs in them that pretty much blew my mind. But more than making a tasty treat, this act of simple cookery (by no means his first, as he's been feeding us well for days) felt like a proclamation that normalcy will someday, perhaps even soon, return to our home.

As I write this, he is upstairs in the kitchen again, working on egg drop soup and potstickers. There's a quickbread (a pumpkin-banana hybrid, 'cause that's what I had in the fridge) in the oven. It's dark outside, but the house is filling with cozy cooking smells, just like it would whether or not I was still pregnant, whether or not we had this sweet infant snoozing on my chest.

For a few weeks food was downgraded to that which was merely keeping us going. It didn't matter to me what I ate or when, so long as I was fueled enough to attend to my new-mama duties. Now I am starting to purposefully eat again, to have preferences about taste and temperature. If presented with that hospital broth today, sure I would reject it, laughing. That feels like progress. And though I could hardly imagine it a few weeks ago, I am sure now that soon I'll be in the kitchen again too. It's never too soon to start this kid's culinary education, right?

For more about young Finch, you may see iamfinch.com.