Something really exciting happened last night....

and it wasn't my Pad Thai. However, for a brief moment, since this is a food blog let me share how I made the best Pad Thai yet.

Pad Thai
I started with cooking a cup of Jasmine rice. Next, I sauteed some East Carolina shrimp in cayenne pepper infused olive oil, with a chopped white onion, chopped green pepper, bean sprouts, chopped carrots, and those little corn things from the movie Big. This happened for only about 5 to 10 minutes, then I squeezed fresh lemon juice on top. I served the rice with the shrimp mixture on top, and then drizzled with a little peanut sauce. It was fresh and excellent. In the past, I cooked the food with the peanut sauce, and the flavors were always too drenched and overpowering. This was a fantastically fresh way to cook it. Of course, add chopped peanuts or scrambled egg if you would like, but it didn't really need it.

Ok, but the really exciting thing is that Serafina slept through the night. Now, the definition provided in the baby books, which I no longer read due to their raging psychotic guilt-ridden approach to parenting, says midnight to six am is sleeping through the night and it happens around three months. Last night Serafina slept from 11:30 to 6:15, her three month birthday. However, I wasn't in the least bit surprised that is just how Serafina rolls. What I have learned about my baby in the last three months is that she is a calming influence on all around her. She tranquilly observes the world, smiles at the unexpected, and rarely cries. When in the first weeks she appeared to suffer from gas attacks, her doctor diagnosed her with colic. AAM and I insisted that she didn't have colic, I mean she never cried, just fussed in the early evening for three hours or so. She would turn bright red and give a bit of an alarming noise, and then calm down, then repeat. My doctor explained, "That is just her way of dealing with the discomfort, every baby is different." Serafina was too calm for colic. I don't mean to brag, but because of her content and happy nature, she surprises and impresses everyone she meets. She just IS. In all the anxieties of first time parenting, she is the baby I need, and seems to be aware that she is leading us on this journey and I am taking her cues. I am not sure where this approach to life comes from because her father and I tend to take the world by storm.

A book I recently finished Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood, talks about observing your child for who they are and freeing yourself of your contrived goals and motivations. I actually found it to be a fantastic, well-thought out, quick read, which puts parenting into perspective with a sense of honesty and humor. I highly recommend it to new parents, and not so new ones. The book reminded me that Serafina teaches me how to slow down and appreciate the quiet changes in our day and scenery. No goals, no future, no past, just be. Yesterday, we spent a good twenty minutes staring at the variety of beans in the canned goods aisle at Harris Teeter. I talked to her about my favorite beans and which ones had more protein; she cooed. We looked at labels and talked recipes. I explained how some beans are called peas, but I wasn't sure why. Hanging out in her sling, she looked up at me and back at the peas and seemed to say "Lady, get over what they are called, let the beans be peas, who cares."