Life & TravelRebecca Shetler Fast

7 Things We've Learned About Parenting

Life & TravelRebecca Shetler Fast
7 Things We've Learned About Parenting

Balancing parenthood with a new baby, job, and life Haiti has taken some adjusting. As Madeline approaches the 8 month mark next week, we've been reflecting on what we've learned along the way.  

#1 Be Chill. This has been our watchword since before Madeline was born. Chill parents equals chill baby...or at least that's the hope.

#2 In the face of parenting criticism, a common occurrence here and around the world, act like you don’t understand the language, and just smile! A good time to use this technique -- when faced with concerned finger waggling about your kid not wearing socks and a winter hat in a million degree Caribbean heat. 

#3 Take breakfast and lunch dates. There was a miraculous period when our kid slept anywhere, anytime, and we delightedly hauled her along to evening dates while obliviously thinking that these breezy parenting days would last. Sadly those days have passed. In the absence of local family to co-opt into babysitting, we have opted for dates over breakfast or lunch when we have childcare for Madeline. 

#4 Put a bow on it. We like to think of ourselves as pretty enlightened parents and aspire to nurture our little future president with all the empowering baby activities that involve chew toys…but nothing smoothes over the incongruous presence of a baby at an evening meeting better then a ridiculously large bow perched atop her head...the larger, the better. The bow becomes the discussion topic, nicely sidestepping the weird fact that we schlepped our baby to a meeting. 

#5 Give her a voice. If you are not in the baby stage yourself, being introduced to a floppy, wide eyed baby can lead to an awkward pause... what do you say when you meet a baby (besides, I like your bow!). In the absence of speaking abilities beyond random shouts and gurgling sounds we like to give Madeline a voice so she can "talk" to people in english or creole, this brings warm smiles and open arms in even the most formal settings.

#6 Introduce a full range of flavors right away. After Paul’s laborious research on infant food strategies, we have made a big effort to introduce as many different flavors as we can, intentionally exposing her to a wacky and wide range of spices and flavors. Highlights include beet watermelon puree, chickpea banana puree with chipotle, avocado and yams, and Haitian spicy pumpkin soup. 

#7 Judge not... While Paul and I have a good feel for balancing our roles of blogging and working together, (without driving each other crazy) we found that parenting required negotiating a different set of rules to establish fluid team work with our new baby. Respecting the other persons' passionately felt opinions on parenting minutia is important. And since our parenting philosophies do vary in some regards, we have found that the best way to avoid judging each others' style and decisions is to divide duties... kind of like cooking together! 

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Madeline's First Tastes

It is a muggy August evening here in Port-au-Prince. The fan is fighting a losing battle to keep us cool as we wash dishes together at the sink. Madeline’s bedroom door is open, and we hear her quiet hiccups as she sleeps. It is hard to believe that this time last year we were cooking in our Pittsburgh kitchen, planning our baby’s birth in a country we had never before visited. Madeline will be 7 months old next week, and each day her little personality gets bigger. She is a warm and pensive little baby, who adores her sleep. Madeline has figured out that the world is best when put in her mouth, and this week mastered crawling. This month has also marked Madeline’s introduction to solid food, and our excited creation of her first tiny meals. Her hands down favorite flavor combination is beet watermelon puree, with Paul’s Massaman curry a close second. Her least favorite; her papa’s attempt at a spicy potato leek soup. As people who love to cook, it has been thrilling to see Madeline’s world expand with every taste. Dorky new parents that we are, we both sit with rapt attention for each new bite: there’s a squint of her eyes, a slight cock of the head, and a furloughed brow, her tongue slowly rolling the new flavor around her mouth…and the moment of decision: food, or not-food. Luckily for us, Madeline has all but once given our weird concoctions the benefit of the doubt. To the joy of first tastes.

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Madeline's First Tastes
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Food and Thoughts of 2016

We catapulted into 2016 in a new country, jobs, and language. Learning Haitian Creole together had moments of both frustration and hilarity. We practiced our new vocabulary at the maternity clinic, when two months after we arrived in Haiti, we became parents! Paul reflected about becoming a father to a daughter, pondering some of the global challenges that girls and women face. Madeline could not have a bigger ally in her proud papa. This year, our first as parents, we have felt deep gratitude and joy for our little daughter. Along the way we also started trying our hand at Haitian cooking, learning to make some of the iconic sweet, savory & spicy dishes we had learned to love. And through it all, our little baby kept growing, and so did we...

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Food and Thoughts of 2016
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Cooking as a Couple: 10 tips

Even for people who love to cook, cooking as a couple can be a uniquely unappealing proposition. Many couples find the kitchen too crowded, the opinions too many, the timing too tight, to share the reins with someone else. Becoming a well-oiled machine in the kitchen takes practice, patience, and strategy. We've found it well worth the effort. We've been been cooking and eating together for over 10 years now, and since we have just about a month left before we leave our galley kitchen in Pittsburgh for Haiti, we thought we'd share the top 10 things we've learned about cooking together as a couple [...]

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Cooking as a Couple: 10 tips
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First Days in Haiti

Our first taste of Haiti has been sweet. We have had a warm and supportive welcome, with friendly, generous co-workers, delicious home cooked meals, many helping hands to get us set up for prenatal care, and mountains of patience from everyone around us as we make our first faltering attempts at speaking Creole. We have been loving our first meals in Haiti. A favorite, today's lunch, was a rich and savory pumpkin soup, called Soup Joumou; a justifiably famous dish often served for Haitian Independence and New Years Day. We will be staying in the guesthouse above our office (pictured above) for a few more days until we head to the countryside, north of the capital in Desarmes, for a three week homestay; an immersive experience that will help to jumpstart our Creole and introduce us to rural life in Haiti.

Stay tuned over the next several weeks as we share some delicious recipes we prepared before we left the US. 

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First Days in Haiti
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Baby Madeline

We have a daughter! It’s a surreal thing to say. We are blissfully happy to share that after weeks of on-and-off contractions and gestation in three countries, our beautiful baby girl, Madeline, was born at 1 am yesterday in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, weighing in at a healthy 7 pounds. Madeline is a lively little newborn, and both she and Rebecca are doing well. It’s hard to put words to the feeling of being parents for just a few short hours; joy, relief, shock and happiness. We have been finding ourselves bursting into giddy (exhausted) laughter quite a bit since little Madeline arrived. We will be taking the next month off from work to get to know our new daughter, and look forward to introducing her to her family (even if virtually in many cases), with her first introduction to both sets of grandparents when they arrive in Haiti in just a few weeks!

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Baby Madeline