So the Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a baby boy yesterday. Just 4 weeks shy of Lucille Amelia’s arrival in this word. It’s hard to believe she’s a month old in some moments (like when I look at pictures of her lying on my chest just hours after birth…and I feel like we first met just yesterday). But then in other moments I feel like we’ve never been without her (like when I wake up beside her and find those bright blue eyes staring right at me).
Life with a newborn is ever changing. We learn one routine and then she quickly establishes another. Some nights she’ll wake me up twice and then other nights I feel like I’m up every hour. She fusses at lunch one day, then at dinner the next. She prefers the right breast on Monday, the left breast on Tuesday. Change. Change. Change. However, this truth remains constant: our need for each other. And while this need is now largely physical (these newborns can nurse!), I know that this is only the beginning of a beautiful and lasting bond.
She smiles at us, she laughs while she sleeps, she screams when my milk doesn’t let down fast enough…or when it comes on too strong. She loves being held by her papa and she loves being bound close to my chest. We started cloth diapering her yesterday, and we’re hoping that the introduction of a pacifier will make our life at least a little bit easier at least some of the time.
I’m surrounded by friends and family that love her and me and Ryan. They’ve showered us with food and visits and words of encouragement. All new mamas need to be told that it’s okay to feel overwhelmed and then to be given tangible support. We have been richly blessed.
And so I’m making ice cream sandwiches and pesto pasta and maybe even a loaf of bread in the days to come (we’re getting AC installed tomorrow). My recipes are less involved post-baby but still just as cathartic. Because motherhood is wonderful but also tiring, and I still find the greatest surge of energy when I’m able to set my thoughts aside and step behind a mixing bowl to create.
I layered strawberry ice cream between two amaretti cookies. I must confess that I didn’t make these cookies myself (Whole Foods has an amazing cookie display case…and like I said…AC is on the horizon but not quite here). However, I do have a recipe to share that I’ve made in the past to great success. So if you feel up to baking, go for it, and if not, then know there is no judgment in stopping in at Whole Foods. Strawberry ice cream tasted lovely between these nutty, chewy cookies but I imagine a dark chocolate ice cream would be just as divine.
Amaretti Ice Cream Sandwiches
Yields 4 cookies
8 medium Amaretti Cookies
1 cup strawberry ice-cream
Allow ice-cream to soften on counter for 5 minutes (it should be just soft enough to scoop). Place 1/4 cup of ice cream on the backs of four cookies. Using a metal spoon, spread ice cream to the edge of each cookie. Take the remaining four cookies and place on top of ice-cream. You will make four sandwiches. Eat immediately or store on a tray in freezer.
