Magrilless

We took our first batch of chestnuts out of the freezer the other day. I had read in the Joy of Cooking how to boil them in water and then pop out the nut meat (so much easier than carving an x in each nut and then coating in oil and then cutting each one open while still hot). Armed with my first recipe and my pot of steaming hot soft nuts, I sneaked a taste of the first one.

Oh my goodness gracious stars above. I think I’ve poisoned myself. The tannic acid in these babies is sooooo high. Soooo bitter. Disgusting. Poison. Want to die.

Okay. Pull yourself together. That’s what raw chestnuts taste like. When they’re cooked, like in Irma’s steamed or boiled chestnuts, they’re that creamy nutty goodness that people pay their college tuition for. Cooking breaks down the tannic acid, gets rid of the bitterness, so it’s a joy to eat them.

Well, not so with these particular nuts. Was is it boiling them beforehand? A second source said to blanch for 3 minutes before peeling, as opposed to Irma’s 25. Are these “au naturale” (i.e., scavenged) nuts supposed to be only ornamental? They look just like the ones you buy in the supermarket and the squirrels eat them. Our plan of attack is to wait a little bit for the memory of the disgustingness to pass and then try cooking them the good old-fashioned labor-intensive way we know how.

For this batch, we dumped the soggy nuts in a container from the recycling bin and let the squirrels go crazy. Except that’s what it looked like a few days later too. Huh. I guess if even the neighborhood squirrels won’t eat it, we should start back at ground zero.

Mid-October means regatta days are here! Our big outing for the week was to head up to the Charles and watch all sorts of boats row past. Maggie was interested, but I think mainly it was the people-watching that she found the most fun. People are constantly smiling and waving and talking to her. For some reason they think she is just the cutest thing they’ve ever seen; go figure. One unfortunate side effect of having such a stand-out kid is that we could only go once to each free sample booth.

Ah, well, I guess it’s worth it. She’s started doing some incredibly cute things like putting her hands on either side of her head when I say “Oh my goodness.” And she’s been practicing nodding her head for yes. She thinks it’s pretty hilarious. She’s also started to realize what buttons do. She has a talking book that says “hello” and then laughs every time you push the big red button; that’s made for some maddening car rides.

All of these things, plus looking at old pictures of Maggie and her imminent graduation from level 2 at Gymboree and a new tooth and putting away all her 6-month size clothes and lots of other little things make me realize she is growing up. How am I almost the mother of a one-year-old?!

It’s fall! It really really is. You can tell by looking at that get-up. Ah, to be a baby again and be perfectly fashionable to wear green booties over pink tights and a dress with orange hearts plus a denim jacket and a bright pink hoodie.

Big time development this week is we’ve gotten Maggie to skip her mid-nighttime feeding. Instead of getting up at 3ish to nurse her briefly and then struggle to fall asleep again (me, not her — she always went to bed just fine afterwards), she now sleeps without complaint until about 5ish. Now the trick will be getting her to extend that morning wake-up time to (hopefully, wishfully, optimistically) 7. Just like I shaved a minute off of that breastfeeding until it was eliminated, we’ll tack on a few minutes before getting her out of her crib in the morning. She’s a smart cookie; I’m sure she’ll get the picture eventually. Boy does it feel good to get into bed knowing we won’t have to get out again until morning.

Everything else is pretty stable. She has weathered her second cold valiantly. She’s gotten comfortable pulling herself up to standing while wearing socks; a good thing since it’s cool weather now. She loves lying in her bath but mostly refuses to stay on her back for an entire diaper change. She’s starting to pick up signs with a vengeance — “more” is her favorite since it normally results in good food in her mouth. Her favorite naughty behaviors are still to go for the dog dishes in the kitchen and to pinch me vigorously during breastfeeding. And she laughs out loud for no reason.

This is Maggie’s special pre-race outfit for the chilly chilly Sunday morning. When we got out of the car we could see our breath, so even though Mags is a little too big for this snowsuit, she was grateful to be snuggly warm. And it also kept her body kind of straight and rigid so it was easy to carry her and nurse her at the same time (we were running a little bit late so I had to walk to the start line of the race while nursing her — but I got to pee before starting to run). All reports are that she enjoyed her time out in the park with all sorts of strangers blazing past; and Bill, who could see her face as I held her, said she was smiling as we crossed the finish line all of us together. And she got a medal too!

Maggie has a great game that she loves to play. It’s the “give it to you” game. She picks up some object and then holds it out for you to take. More often than not she wants it back again, but she can be convinced that just handing it over is fun. Like when doing the laundry and there’s a whole big pile of stuff to be picked up one after the other. We really like this game and encourage it a lot.

And look at that tooth up on top! She now officially has 2 above and 2 below. Still waiting on those other two up there.