I am quite good at making paper snowflakes. People have started asking me for tips, so I threw together this quick tutorial. It speaks for itself.

Birthday
A year ago today my sweet Penelope Mae was born. And with her arrival our lives were thrown into a chaos deeper, more tender, and joyous, and frightening than I’ve ever known. And the three of us–David, Penny, and me–have emerged from it all. We have stepped (yes, even the tiniest of us, stepped!) into […]

Two Years
A few weeks ago I pulled up a slow song on my phone and hit play. I coaxed David up off the couch and asked him to dance with me. We revolved slowly in the center of the living room, amid a sea of baby toys and burp cloths, in pajamas and unwashed hair while Penny […]

Papa Speaks: On Being Sick
Note: “Papa Speaks” is the tentative title for what we hope will be a recurring feature on this blog: updates from David. Here, he’ll write about food, family, and whatever sparks his interest. No one ever likes being sick. It always throws you off whatever you were in the middle of–whether it’s a streak of […]

Milk
It is three days after Penelope’s birth, and we are home in our apartment for the first time. I am hiding in our bedroom alone, stuffing fistfuls of the white down comforter into my mouth, my whole body shaking violently with sobs. I feel myself breaking, cracking open. Out in the living room my mother-in-law […]

Quest for the Perfect Pizza Dough: Take Two
Last spring I began a quest for the perfect pizza dough, and the first recipe I tried didn’t cut it. I had every intention of getting right back in the kitchen, but pregnancy destroyed all my ambition. So that’s how I find myself a little over a year later finally getting around to pizza dough […]

Papa Speaks: The Year of 30
This spectacular image of Pen–when she was just a few days old–sums up the past 12+ months for me. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words…tired, wired, mired…

Sunday Mornings
When we were dating, David and I spent Sunday mornings at his Brooklyn apartment in our pajamas with the New York Times, coffee, and a box of crunch mini donuts. Spending all morning reading and getting crumbs all over the bed (it’s ok; Sunday is also laundry day) was fantastic, and I wasn’t about to […]

Date Night
The first time I was away from Penny was two nights after she was born. We were still in the hospital and she had been crying incessantly for what seemed like hours. I refused to let her be taken to the nursery, so David and I took turns trying to console her and attempting to […]

Mama
In the beginning Penny was jaundiced and lost 13% of her birthweight after leaving the hospital, so we were putting in regular appearances at the pediatrician’s office. Bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived, I held my daughter so a lab technician could prick Penny’s heel and draw blood to test her bilirubin levels. “Name?” asked the lab tech. […]