AOIFE NUGENT, PORTLAND, ME
With our second child came a wave of glorious relief. We were all done! I couldn’t believe we had been so lucky. Leading up to the birth it seemed improbable and audacious to expect not one, but two relatively healthy children. But here we were, at home, settling in, and this second baby was still sleepy and cuddly. My husband was home for two months after the baby was born, but with his first work trip came the departure of our quiet newborn and the introduction of a proper little person. He was slowly opening up to the world and was a lot less easy to ignore. Our toddler was not impressed.
Parenting for me is all about intense highs and lows, often within the span of an hour. In one instant, Enda and I would be playing or reading intently, and in the next, Shay is screaming and Enda needs help on the potty. What was moments before a peaceful household is now chaos. I would find myself wondering, “What were we thinking? Two kids! That’s crazy! Breastfeeding while reading books and playing legos? Exhausting.” I would breastfeed as discreetly as possible (“Oh this little thing here? It’s nothing!”) for fear of disrupting the flow of play with my toddler. Poor little Shay. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed and cuddle with this new person I was getting to know. But in reality I was completely focused on making things feel normal for my three year old.
Two things changed between the 3rd and 4th month of Shay’s life: I reset all my expectations of life with two kids, and Enda began to tolerate and then (dare I say it?) even enjoy his little brother. Those uninterrupted days of playing and connecting with one child were gone, and now the time spent would be in smaller parcels with unforeseen moments of bonding. Acknowledging that I was going to have to be ok with that somehow made things easier, in both the peaceful, and chaotic moments.
AOIFE’S RECEIPE FOR NANA’S BROWN BREAD
When in doubt there is one thing that never fails to make me feel restored, as a mother and person: baking bread. And this 4-ingredient recipe can be done in 15 minutes. Surely I can bounce a baby and distract a toddler for 15 minutes!
My mother grew up in a large stone house built in the late 1700’s in Northern Ireland. The kitchen contained no modern conveniences (they didn’t have electricity until she was 7), a flagstone floor, and a heavy wooden latched door that lead to the yard. It was in this kitchen that my Nana, every other day, would bake loaves of bread to sustain her brood of 6 children, a constant stream of patients waiting in my surgeon Grandfather’s office, and the inevitable neighbor or two just ‘popping in’.
In this tradition, I make her simple and delicious brown bread and think of all the women before me who nourished their families with the same love in the face of chaos.
INGREDIENTS:
1 lemon
2 cups of milk
3 cups of flour OR 2 cups of flour plus 1/2 cup of flax seeds and 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
1 teaspoon of baking soda
Pinch of salt
DIRECTIONS:
This recipe calls for buttermilk, which I make myself by adding lemon juice to milk. I usually pour 2 tablespoons of lemon juice into 2 cups of milk while stirring, and then leave it until it curdles slightly (this does not take very long but I do it about an hour before I plan to make the bread).
When buttermilk is ready, preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Set aside 2 Tbsp. of buttermilk in small dish for final step.
Add dry ingredients into large mixing bowl and stir.
Mix in buttermilk slowly from the center until the texture is doughy and a little wet. Make sure there are no pockets of flour but do maintain the lumps in the mixture.
Lightly coat a bread loaf pan in butter and sprinkle with flour.
Pour mixture into pan and even out, patting the dough in the center so it dips a bit.
Drizzle remaining 2 Tbsp. of buttermilk over top.
Bake bread at 400 degress for 10 minutes.
Turn down heat to 350 degrees and bake 50 minutes, or until top is slightly brown and a toothpick comes out clean.
And as my mother always reminds me, no loaf of bread is ever the same and you vary the recipe to taste as the years go by and make it yours.
Aoife Nugent worked in film production and then arts management after receiving a master’s degree from Pratt Institute. She and her family moved to Portland, Maine two years ago from Brooklyn. NY. She is currently staying home with her two boys, 5 months and 3 years old. She writes the blog www.nowthebeyond.com for and about parents with partners who travel.
Posted May 12, 2019