a bang up holiday weekend

This weekend was the most fun weekend I've had in a long time. I did something I've never done before (participate in a neighborhood bike parade) and something I have not done in way too long: I went out to see live music and not just any live music, but the U2 concert at Vanderbilt stadium.

On Saturday night 45,000 fans convened on a hot and muggy Nashville night to see and hear a spectacle of greatness, talent and sincerity that left us practically skipping all the way home. For me, it was an extra special concert, as I've been a U2 fan for most of my life. Well, for as long as I remember being able to really love music. The band have been together now for 35 years which makes me feel really old.

I first saw them in concert in high school, though I followed them for long before that. I actually got to meet them when I was 17 and they were on tour and played in Las Vegas, where I am from. Through my dad's friendship with one well-connected man, my friend Erica and I got to deliver tickets for a boxing match, a gift from the concert promoter, to the band at their hotel (!!!). Imagine the excitement. It was a dream come true. Somewhere I have a photo of that meeting - my friend and I sandwiched between Bono and the Edge, looking every bit as nervous and elated as you would imagine two teenage girls meeting the famous rock stars of their dreams would look. I would post that photo if only I could find it.

We had not been planning to go on Sat., but I got a wild hair and decided to look for tickets on craigslist. I found them, we found a babysitter last-minute and off we went!

The concert was wonderful and special and Daniel and I had a really fun time. I loved the opener too: Florence and the Machine, an ethereal and stunning British woman in a long green chiffon costume who sang beautifully and skipped around the stage barefoot. I had heard only one of her songs before and knew she was a fashion icon so it was cool to see her perform live.

When U2 came on the stage Daniel joked, "Look at them - they're like Gods." And that's how it felt. They looked great too. Time has done nothing to diminish their god-like rock star status. Bono kept talking about how much they loved Nashville and how great it was to be playing here for the first time since 1981. It was also their 100th show on this "360 Tour." He sang a song that he wrote and performed with Johnny Cash called The Wanderer. And they played a lot of old hits as well as newer material. There were about 10 years in there when I was in grad school and not listening to much music and I lost track of them (around the time Zooropa came out). But since then, I've managed to catch one other U2 concert --in 2004 in Denver, in addition to the couple of times I saw them in the 80s-- but none was as great as this show. Maybe it's because, like the band, I am aging and living in a new phase of life, one that is amazing and beautiful, but which contains too few opportunities to rock out. And it was all so nostalgic for me. Hearing them perform "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "I Will Follow" and "In the Name of Love" will always tug at my heartstrings and remind me of my younger days.

Here are some photos from the show, not the best because shot from afar with my phone, but nonetheless they capture the drama and impact of the rocket ship stage framed by hundreds of very sophisticated moving video screens in a 360 degree ring above the stage. From this the concert was projected spliced with cutting edge video graphics and special effects, old footage of the band, and even recorded transmissions from Desmond Tutu and Gabrielle Gifford's astronaut husband from outer space telling us that "It's a Beautiful Day." Pretty cool.

It was all so spontaneous and that added to the fun of the evening. I am so glad I got that wild hair and that it all worked out so perfectly. I was meant to rekindle my love affair with U2 here in Nashville on this 4th of July weekend.

The other thing we did that was super fun was participate in this cute little bike parade that our neighbor Zella, age 6, organized.

I thought her poster was really cute, and the parade was even cuter. The kids all decorated their bikes and wagons and we took June along in the trailer behind my bike. Zella's dad and another neighbor blocked the traffic on our street at each end of the block and we all paraded down and back complete with accompanying drum and saxophone and a live Statue of Liberty. It was really very sweet and reminded me of what a great neighborhood we chose to live and raise our child in.

The Birthday Party

I wrote about how June's first birthday has made me reflect on the last year and how far we've come. Now for the party that marked that special occasion.

I wanted to throw a party that would be fitting of such an important occasion and although I realize a baby's first birthday is more meaningful to her parents than to her, I still wanted it to be a child's party. We invited about 30 people and as many of our friends with babies or kids that we could think of. There were probably about 10-12 kids crawling and playing at one time in the living room. June was in Heaven.

I found these pretty striped paper plates at Target and matching invitations and that became the color scheme of all the decorations. I added red, white and blue touches with stars which seemed appropriate given that it was the week before the 4th of July. I can see lots of red, white and blue parties and fireworks in her future.

I had lots of fun putting together little party favors using these popcorn boxes I found at Michael's to round out the all-American theme. I found the contents: little plastic sunglasses, rubber balls and wands, candy necklaces and party horns at the Dollar store.

I spent a good deal of time in the days before the party baking. I didn't want a pink princess theme but I did want to make desserts and goodies that were fit for a little princess. I had always wanted to make petit fours, those delicate little cakes that look so pretty and that I recently learned were born out of economy as bakers used up the discarded scraps from a larger cake to make the little bite-sized sweets. I used Martha Stewart's recipe and then threw out her icing and made my own.

The cake (a white cake with almond paste and a layer of jam in between, came out great but the icing was either too thin and didn't coat well, or the second batch was too thick and looked clunky. I decided that my pouring technique could use a little work and next time they will probably come out looking cleaner. But they still looked pretty, decorated with little pink and white sugar flowers or multi-colored sprinkles.

I also made marbled cream cheese brownies that I cut into small squares and madeleines which I always loved making when I worked at Marché.

Then I make these blackberry, mozzarella and basil, and straberry, mozzarella and mint skewers which looked really pretty and were a nice complement to the sweets.

A friend brought a huge fresh fruit platter and my mother-in-law brought chicken salad. And, my friend Heidi brought her delicious cake pops which everybody loved.

And for the birthday girl, I made her a yummy carrot cake, the same one I make for Daniel on his birthday and it is a favorite in our family. She seemed to like it. She loves veggies so I thought it would be a good way to introduce her to cake. I made a little 5-inch round cake for her and decorated it with cream cheese frosting and little frosting carrots with a leaf of parsley for the green.

It was really fun to see all of our friends and family there to celebrate June's first year. And she had a blast! She wore a party dress that belonged to my cousin who is 18 now and it looked so cute on her. It was sentimental for me because my mom bought that dress. And even though it was a little long, it did not stop her from crawling all over the place and walking all over with her 'lion' showing off for everyone.

She really seemed to enjoy the attention and revel in the party atmosphere. A girl after my own heart.

What a fun day! I will always remember June's first birthday and how much fun I had planning and putting together the party. I love throwing a good party and never need much of an excuse to bake, but it was particularly fun to do it for the first time for my little girl. I have a feeling there will be some great parties in our future.

One year ago today...

My little girl came into the world after a long and frustrating birth. With the help of time, her challenging 24-hour long entry into life becomes less and less emotional and is replaced by the wonder and joy of her birth and some of the happiest moments of my life spent with her and Daniel in those first days and weeks. What a beautiful time.

I look back on the last year and cannot believe how much we've been through together. I think the first birthday of a first child is especially momentous, not least because what you are celebrating is the growth and change in you as a new parent as much as the incredible growth and change in the baby. Making it through the first year virtually unscathed, maybe a little tired, but mostly just grateful for the gift of this beautiful child is enough to celebrate. And then there is this perfect child that you love more than you ever could have imagined and her first birthday becomes something particularly sentimental, emotional and important.

Even though June is now mostly (and finally) sleeping through the night (thank God), I awoke at 5 a.m. this morning and looked at the clock until it said 5:24, the exact time June was born one year ago today. Daniel was at my side in the hospital and we held our baby girl and cried, all three of us overcome with the emotions of that moment of meeting each other for the first time. She was so obviously healthy and robust and strong willed, having chosen exactly the right moment to be born, regardless of the plans and the vision I or anyone else had. She continues to be strong and feisty, intense and funny, and a joyous little girl.

It seems appropriate now to look back and see how far we've come as a family, how June's presence in our lives has changed us and turned us into parents, something I've always thought was one of the toughest jobs there is and that is now confirmed by first-hand experience. When you decide to have a child everyone tells you that "your life will change forever" and that "your life is no longer your own," and all that is true. But it's true on a level that you can't really accept until it happens and how you react to that can be one of the biggest surprises and learning experiences of the whole parenting thing. It determines a lot whether you accept this wholeheartedly, or some part of you resists it.

For example, I remember worrying while I was pregnant with June about how much I would miss my former, childless life and fretted about how I would ever go back to work and "be a productive member of society" (I actually wrote that, as if being a mother is not being productive and contributing to society enough) and when and what would I do "just" taking care of a baby all the time. That all seems like irrelevant and unnecessary worrying to me now.

I don't mean that I don't sometimes have moments when I wish I was free to just go get a haircut and stay out until late and take a bike ride in the morning by myself. What parent of small children doesn't wish for more time to themselves? The last year has been full of sacrifices that I knew I would have to make, but that nothing prepared me for making and nothing surprises me more about myself than how I've made them. I guess being an older mom probably makes me more ready to make these sacrifices than my friends who are younger moms in their 20s and 30s.

I did whatever I wanted for the last 40 years of my life (well at least the last 20), and I had some amazing experiences that I am so glad I had *before* having a baby. I've been to Europe more than a dozen times, I attended conferences all over the world as an academic, studied and lived in Italy for months at a time, taught in some top notch colleges, went to Spain to study flamenco from the masters when I was 25, lived in Seattle, Oregon, Colorado and Rome. I miss those days of traveling unencumbered by anything but how much money I had left in my bank account (which even that hardly ever stopped me). But I don't ever want to go back to that. It would seem so lonely to me now.

Now I look forward to sharing those kinds of experiences with my husband and daughter. I can't wait to take her with us on all kinds of adventures: to Colorado (my birthplace and where I consider home) for the first time; to Italy--my adopted second home and where I feel most comfortable; maybe to Mexico or Argentina, where I long to go and learn more of the language and the cultures; and all over the U.S., most of which I haven't seen myself. We will take those trips, and more. And it will be all the more enjoyable because I have June and Daniel to share it with.

Some of the challenges June and I have faced have brought us so close together. I know how cliché that sounds, but it's so true. Breastfeeding was very difficult for us at first. It was a huge sacrifice until we got the hang of it, probably the most difficult one of all because you are giving your baby everything you have and suffering through it the whole time. It made me cry several times and I did not look forward to it every 2-3 hours all day long. But then, one day, things changed and all of sudden we were doing great and she was gaining weight rapidly and it no longer hurt and I felt a sense of accomplishment that I was feeding my baby with nothing other than my body --something no other accomplishment in my life has compared to.

Sleeping has been another challenge. Just like she entered the world, on her terms, June's sleeping patterns were also going to be on her terms, not mine. She taught me early on that she would decide her schedule and she would take her time becoming a better napper and sleeping through the night.

She took 10 months for the former and a whole year for the latter. But I learned patience and perseverance and I got exhausted and grumpy in the process. But again, I knew it would eventually change and it did. We shared a bed and our sleep became synchronized and that was lovely and worked for a long time. Until it didn't and Daniel and I were being awoken a few too many times and the night nursing (or "snacking") became unbearable. That's when we moved her to her own bed and the transition went surprisingly well. Maybe that's because I didn't listen to everyone who claimed we were "spoiling" her and putting her in danger of never being able to sleep alone, and I listened to my instinct that said she will do it eventually, when she is ready, and then it will go easier for all of us. I am proud of myself for sticking to that and for getting through that sleep-deprived time without losing my mind (though it almost came to that).

There are many other challenges and milestones and things to be proud of about our first year together. And I am sure there will be many more ups and downs and major hurdles as well as monumental joys. It's hard to believe but she is almost walking and "talking" a lot, she's very social and fun-loving and what I am most proud of is that because of all the sacrifices we've made in the last year, she is a sweet, loving, secure and very happy child.

Happy 1st Birthday to my little Junebug!