The beginning of the school year and a layered pasta salad

Yesterday marked the first day that I haven't been either in school or teaching since my brief stint of teacherly unemployment in 2007. That's right, since I've been in kindergarten, I can count three Tuesdays after Labour Day when I haven't been part of the education system (2003 - working at Louise's Belgian Chocolates; 2008 - waiting on the supply teaching list to get hired; 2012 - mat leave). Honestly, it leaves me feeling kind of at a loss.

I know there are lots of people who would kill to have a year off, but I'm a little sad not to be in the classroom. Interacting with more than a hundred people a day makes me happy. It keeps me entertained and I laugh a lot.

When I started teaching junior high school, I thought: there's a reason no one wants to teach this age group.

And then I realized that 12-15 year olds, especially when in their own school, are pretty much the perfect combination of children and adults. They're learning sarcasm, but they still believe in magic in the world. It's all kinds of lovely.

So, being at home with a baby... well... this is out of my comfort zone. Teenagers, I get. Babies... not so much.

Of course, when they're adorable as Audrey is, it's hard not to spend time laughing and smiling at her. Especially when she makes faces like this:

The many stretches (or fist pumps or YMCA renditions) of Ms. Audrey

So, the plan is to take some time to focus, not only on the wee one who just passed out in her swing, but also to refocus on healthy eating and exercise. So, on that note, I present a clean eating pasta salad:

  

Not the best picture in the world, but the container isn't perfectly clear, and frankly I don't have time to style my food. =P

The colours are very pretty though:

 

 Balsamic Tuna Pasta Salad

(from Clean Eating, Aug/Sept 2012)

serves 4 - 2 dinners & 2 lunches

Ingredients

1 cup brown rice pasta fusilli/rotini
4 tbsp white wine vinegar
4 tbsp balsamic vinegar
¼ tsp dried basil
¼ tsp dried oregano
¼ tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 tbsp water
¼ cup finely chopped sun dried tomatoes
¼-½ tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
2 6oz cans water packed tuna, drained
½ pint cherry tomatoes, halved
a handful cremini mushrooms, sliced
mixed salad greens
2 oz grated light mozzarella cheese

Directions

1. In a large pot of boiling water, cook pasta according to package directions.

2. Meanwhile, in another small pot, heat vinegars with basil, oregano, red pepper flakes and water. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat. Stir in sun dried tomatoes, salt and pepper and set aside. Once slightly cooled, whisk in olive oil.

3. To assemble in layers, put a quarter of the dressing in the bottom of a 2 cup container. Layer in a half can of tuna, followed by pasta, mushrooms, tomatoes. Fill the rest of the container with salad greens and top with cheese. It's important that the salad greens don't touch the dressing; if they do, they'll get soggy. You can make this up to a day in advance.

So, life got a little busy...

Some people love being pregnant. I am resoundingly not one of them. Between constant, debilitating pelvic joint pain which left me barely able to walk from about February through early July, and general malaise, exhaustion and a particularly challenging class (okay, not strictly pregnancy related, but it certainly didn't make life easier), I feel like I barely made it through July.

At the end of it though - and by, the end, I mean July 18th - our baby decided to make her debut.

To say that the whole labour experience was a comedy of errors would be doing the people at the hospital a disservice. I WILL say though that between the epidural taking an hour to administer (it usually takes 10 minutes) because the student doctor (I'm sorry resident) needed help from his attending (and even then, she had to do it in the end), going through 6 nurses, including one who responded to my question of "How dilated am I?" with "Have you ever had Yorkshire pudding?" and, the epidural only working on half my body at a time before finally failing in the end (so I got to experience most of my labour and birth, whee! Not at all what I wanted) AND the doctors having to use a vacuum as the baby was sunny side up right until the end, both my husband and I managed to laugh our way through most of the experience.

Except the actually moments of delivery. I screamed a lot during those.

I'll be honest, the fact that I made it to 6 cms med free makes me pretty proud. Especially because I spent most of them sitting still on the edge of the hospital bed being poked repeatedly by the epidural needle. The whole experience gives me a lot of faith that I could handle doing it naturally.

Not that I want to. It's just nice to know that I could do it.

Audrey Piper was made her grand debut at 11:02 am on July 18th and has pretty much ruled our lives with a cute but iron fist since then.

I joke, she's actually been a pretty chilled out baby to date. The only thing that really upsets her is when I don't feed her fast enough. She also happens to be a grazer throughout the day, which is pretty reminiscent of my side of the family.

Alright, I have to share this picture too, because it's one of my favourites. Audrey at 5 days old:

If I'm very lucky, she'll sleep for 4-5 hours of the night followed by another 2-3 after her early morning feed. So, we're not terribly sleep deprived... but the 5-6 week mark (which, I understand, is when their crying peaks and they're generally at their most cranky) is yet to be upon us, so I don't want to jinx thing!

For your daily dose of cuteness, here are 4 pictures, each taken a week apart (one week old- four weeks old). I'm totally unbiased in saying she's the most adorable baby ever, right?

With the first four weeks behind us, I'm hoping to get back into the swing of blogging regularly. Honestly, I'd hoped to have done this sooner, but today marks the first time that she's been willing to nap anywhere but my arms.

It might surprise you, but it's hard to type with just one hand, while holding a baby. My husband has managed to do a pretty good job of it with on the iPad, mind you, so maybe there's hope for me yet.