First of Advent

This is such a special time of year. I love all the traditions I grew up with and have always tried to keep them going with my little family. I think that this year it is especially important to me that we keep these family traditions alive. We have had such a tough month with so many uncertainties. Emma is now starting to feel much better and I want to do everything I can to keep this time of year special for all of us.
As today is the first of Advent, we lit the first candle at the end of the day while eating saffron rolls. I used my mother's recipe and if I do say so myself they turned out pretty tasty...though maybe not very pretty... The house smells wonderfully of the Christmas tree we picked up today mixed with the aroma of freshly baked bread. The mood has been helped further by the fact that it snowed most of the day - everything is white and fresh!
Tonight I will finish wrapping the little gifts for Emma and Henry's Advent calendars so they can open the first ones tomorrow. Emma and I are going to decorate the tree in the morning while Henry naps - I hope she has as much fun as I plan to!

Who needs toys...

...when a plain old box is so much fun!?

Trunk-or-Treating

Emma's preschool did the cutest thing for Halloween, they had a "trunk-or-treat". At first I didn't get the concept and had to read the handout a couple of times but the basic idea was that parents park in the preschool parking lot and then the kids trick-or-treat out of the parents' trunks. The teachers led a line of adorable little pre-schoolers, all dressed up, around the rows of cars. Parents had decorated their trunks and it was very festive. Grandma and Grandpa came to join the fun and of course Henry was there too. Emma was so sweet when she first saw Henry - she gave him a nice, gentle pat on the cheek. She was really happy to see her little brother! Emma collected a lot of loot and when we got home she immediately wanted to count and sort all the things she had collected. She even shared a few pieces with Henry. The next day Emma was admitted to Children's Hospital so she didn't get to go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood this year. That was ok, at least she had already had the experience at preschool. Emma also went trick-or-treating around the HOT unit, dressed in her hospital gown and ballet slippers, dragging the IV pole with her. I am happy that Henry is too young to realize that he missed out on Halloween. We'll make up for it next year. Can he be a golfer again? That costume was just so darn cute!

Emma

Since Wednesday of last week, we have been at Children's Hospital. It all came about very suddenly but Emma has been diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL). I took her to the Pediatrician on Wednesday afternoon and by that night we were admitted to the hospital. The diagnosis was confirmed on Thursday and treatment begun on Friday. This is such a shock. Noone thinks something like this can happen to them and I was no different. Under the circumstances Emma is doing as well as can be expected and she is responding normally to treatment. We are honestly extremely optimistic and hopeful for a full recovery though we know the road will be long and tough.

I have decided that this is all I want to say on this blog about Emma's condition and treatment for now. Here I am choosing to focus on the positive aspects of our everyday life. I am convinced there will be plenty of things to be happy about in the coming months as we fight this battle. Emma is a strong little girl and has the love and support of so many people. She will beat this!

If you are interested in following Emma's treatment, we have created a site at caringbridge.org

United Nations

The following morning Nancy and I had a leisurely breakfast - I love the bagels in New York - before we walked over to the United Nations. Our luncheon didn't start until 12:30 so we decided to take a tour of the UN before our event. Of course there was a long line to get tour tickets and by the time we got ours, the only tour available to us started at 11:55 and was supposed to last 45 minutes. This meant we would be about 10 minutes late to the reception before our lunch. We decided this would be ok, or that perhaps we could sneak away from the tour a few minutes early...yeah, right!
First of all, our tour was a few minutes late getting started and as we went through security with our group, we knew we had made a mistake. The tour guide showed us a model of the UN, a few fabulous pieces of art donated to the UN by various countries and on we went...slowly. We quickly realized that this tour would take much longer than the 45 minutes we had been told, so we thought we would go back the way we came and make our way to our luncheon. We took 10 steps toward the exit and were stopped by another tour guide. We were scolded and told to go back to our group. Nancy and I tried to explain our situation and were sternly told we had to wait until someone could be found to escort us out. So we had no choice but to follow our tour into the General Assembly Hall. It was pretty neat to see this room that I've seen on TV so many times but we were distracted by the fact that we had to get out of there! At this point we found a security guard and asked for his help. He tried to escort us to an elevator but again we were stopped, by our tour guide this time. We were told to wait a the back of the hall and someone would come along to escort us out. So we waited...finally a woman did turn up to assist us the 6 steps to the elevator, where she made sure we got on, and sent us on our way. We took the elevator down, went through security yet again, and found the United Nations Delegates Dining Room where our luncheon for the Dag Hammarskjöld Scholarship Fund for Journalists was being held.

It was exciting being a part of something at the UN - I'm not sure I felt that I completely belonged but at least I could pretend for the few hours I was there. At the reception prior to the lunch we met the director of UNICEF, though I don't think she was in the mood to chit-chat (at least not with us). I would have loved to talk to her. How do you get to be director of UNICEF? It is such a wonderful organization that does so much good around the world. There were plenty of other interesting people to talk to - we spoke to a lovely woman from the Mission of Greece.
When we sat down to eat I was happy to see that I had been seated between two Swedish gentleman. However, I was suprised to hear that I apparently have an American accent when I speak Swedish?! I don't think anyone has said that to me before. We had a nice lunch and listened to the speakers while we ate. The first speaker was the Sectretary General, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon. His most memorable line went something like this: "This is the second time this month that I am attending three lunches without eating lunch and last week I attended four dinners without eating dinner, this has got to stop!" I thought that was pretty funny and I am sure that is what his life is like...making speech after speech. I would get confused about what event I was speaking at and use the wrong notes or something. Good thing he is a professional.
Next we heard from the four journalists who were awarded fellowships from the Dag Hammarskjöld Scholarship Fund for Journalists this year. The journalists are all from developing countries, in this case Peru, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia and Zambia, and have spent 10 weeks at the UN, covering the General Assembly while being mentored by veterans in their field. It is a wonderful opportunity for these young journalists and they gave inspiring speeches. How strange it must be for the woman from Saudi Arabia to go back home after 10 weeks of complete freedom in New York. But of course Saudi Arabia is her home and it is probably presumptuous of me to even say that.

I had such a wonderful time in New York with Nancy, even if it was just over 24 hours. I did miss Dan, Emma and Henry though and was very happy to see them after another easy flight.

New York, New York

View out the apartment window

This week, I got a chance to go to New York City. I went all by myself - no husband, no kids -and met my mother-in-law there for a couple of days in the big apple. This is only the second time I have gone anywhere all be myself since Emma was born so it was a very big deal! The kids were home with a babysitter the first day and Dan stayed home from work the second day (they had a blast!)
Traveling alone feels light years away from traveling with two small children, as anyone who has done it can attest to.
For this trip, I brought one carry-on bag and my purse. If the kids were with me, I would have checked two bags, had a huge carry-on with Henry's carseat attached to it in addition to my ever-present diaper bag.
For this trip, I walked calmly to security, took off my shoes, took my little ziplock bag of toiletries (what a glamorous way to pack by the way!) out of my purse, sent everything through the machine, put my shoes back on and was done. If the kids were with me, I would have made my way to security while trying to carry everything, hang on to Henry, and make sure Emma was close by. Then I would have taken off three pairs of shoes and everyone's jacket, put them through the machine with all our other belongings, tried to keep Henry within arms reach - not an easy thing to do - forgotten to take out my little ziplock bag so everything would have to go throught the machine a second time and I would be sweating by the time everyone's shoes were back on as we would be walking to the gate.
For this trip, I sat quietly at the gate waiting to board the plane. If the kids were with me, I would have chased them around the terminal, trying to tire them out before we got on the plane, while also trying to cause the least amount of disturbance to other travelers. I would have taken Emma to the restroom one last time, while carrying all our stuff and trying to keep Henry from laying down on the public restroom floor - why does he do that!?
For this trip, I read my book during the entire flight, pausing only to eat my freshly baked chocolate chip cookies (I love Midwest Airlines) If the kids were with me - I think you are starting to get the picture - I would be trying to entertain a 3-year old and an almost 2-year old with anything I could think of: DVD player, snacks, stickers, snacks, books, snacks and of course the chocolate chip cookies that would end up everywhere!
Not that I blame the kids at all...they are so young and I think we subject them to a lot of things that are hard from them to handle. At least this time they got to stay at home!

So I got to New York well rested and excited to spend the next two days doing fun things with Nancy.
First we headed to 5th Avenue for some shopping. It was fun!
Next we took the subway to 86th and Madison to look at all the beautiful childrens' boutiques they have in that area. Emma and Henry got some fabulous things. We'll have to do a fashion show when their clothes arrive.
Dinner that evening was at Aquavit. The chef there is Swedish so of course this restaurant is a favorite of mine. The food is devine. I thought it was funny that most of the patrons were men, I suppose it is a restaurant for business dinners and expense accounts. Anyway, I loved my meal!
Nancy and I called it a night pretty early, especially for New Work standards, I'm sure. We had a big day ahead of us. More on that later.

Pizza Night

Notice how the kid portion has many fewer ingredients than the adult portion...

Friday night has become pizza night at our house. Everyone loves pizza, even our extremely picky eater Emma (depending on the toppings of course), so this is a very popular meal. Having tons of vegetables in the house because of our CSA deliveries, pizza is the ideal food - you can put anything you want on it, throw some cheese on top, and you are all set. We love using basil pesto instead of tomato sauce on ours.

Here is my recipe for whole wheat pizza crust:

1 envelope Dry Yeast
1 cup Warm Water
2 3/4 cup Whole Wheat Flour
1 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Sugar
2 tbsp Olive Oil

Add yeast to the warm water and let sit. In a stand mixer, combine dry ingredients and then add the olive oil. Add water and yeast mixture and knead for about 5 minutes. Let rise, covered, for 30 minutes. Roll out dough (makes two smaller pizzas or one very big one), add desired ingredients and bake at 450 degrees for about 20 minutes or until crust is fully baked and cheese has melted nicely.

Enjoy and let me know how it turns out!