CFEC: Where a Mom Can be a Mom

For kids who aren't freaked out by Munch's Make-Believe Band of automons, Chuck E. Cheese is a place where a kid can be a kid. Right? We've all heard the jingle; Chuck E. Cheese is an awesome place where little ones can run around, eat pizza, scream, cry, poop, play, win prizes and thoroughly annoy their parents until they pass out from exhaustion.

This post isn't about Chuck E. Cheese (Though I fear we'll have one of those in our foreseeable future).

It's about a place I've found here in Cincinnati where a mom can be a mom. And it's way better and has a creepout factor of 0 (compared to Chuck E. Cheese's 8.5). This sanctuary is called the Cincinnati Family Enrichment Center and, like I've hinted, it's freaking awesome.

Jas and I first learned about the CFEC from our just-as-awesome OBGYN whose wife attended hypnobirthing classes taught by one of the founders, Sharon Said. Our doc marketed the center as a place for parents, especially moms, to meet, gather, talk, swap stories and let their babies roam free, learn and interact with other little tykes.

After going there for the first time yesterday, he was wrong. So wrong.

The Cincinnati Family Enrichment Center is so much more. Babes attached to breastfeeding mamas sit amid toys, pint-sized chairs and toddlers singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" en Espanol. Vegan, non-GMO, home-made snacks line up the case of the center's cafe counter. Baby gates are everywhere. Shoes are left at the door.

Without ever stepping foot inside before, I have to admit that the place felt like home; comforting and snuggly, like a big fat hug.

I went there, per my OBGYN's orders to "Get out and have two social interactions a week," on Wednesday after exchanging emails with Sharon Said. It was a match made in heaven: They need marketing volunteers and I need activities to fill my time up. I'm so stoked to be able to help them out but moreover, I'm really looking forward to spending more time there. I mean, heck, just on my first day I met two women who gave me more advice and social stimulation than I knew what to do with. I know I sound like a broken record, but it was awesome and refreshing.

Other great things they offer? A Tree of Life prenatal yoga class for baby-mama AND partner (Jas and I are going this Saturday. I don't think Jas has ever done yoga before, but I'm looking forward to seeing his long limbs fold into happy baby position. More on that later, I'm sure.), the aforementioned birthing classes, breastfeeding classes and a slew of classes and workshops for mama and baby once the little fetus is officially recognized as a real, live, human being (That's an homage to my friend Meghann). I'm already planning on making the trek over to the Northside neighborhood on Thursdays once grandparents are gone and Jas is back at work to attend the Tummy Time class and, schedule allowing, Parent/Baby Yoga classes on the weekends.

Even with all these great characteristics stacking up, I think maybe the coolest thing about the CFEC is that it's run by two moms who just wanted a place to hang out and be able to do mom things without worry, stress or judgement. If that's not passion, I'm not sure what is.

I'm just glad and thankful that I get to be a part of it.

Well...and that it doesn't require pizza, ball pits or super scary oversized puppets that haunt my dreams and give me the willies.

Requiem for the Glass or Portland Would be Ashamed

I have a really deep, dark and shameful admission to make.

Last Friday I threw away glass. Into the garbage. Not broken drinking cup glass (though we've done plenty of that) but glass that's been molded into kombucha bottles, fizzy water bottles and candle jars.

It felt wrong. More wrong than keeping our furnace blasting at 75 degrees. Worse than driving 10 miles every day to go to the store. Even more heinous than using plastic bags to catch the fruit and veggie refuse when I make my morning juice (Seriously though, that crime saves me a solid five minutes of juice refuse washing).

Still, despite my foul play against this earthly material, I did it, knowing exactly what I was doing. Instead of respecting the glass by giving it a ride to a recyclery, I changed its fate to live a long, depressing life in a landfill where it will live alongside plastic lids, dirty diapers and food scraps forever.

I can't help but think of the final scenes of Toy Story 3 when all of our favorite characters hold hands while they tumble their way in slow motion into the fiery furnace. I can only imagine the bottles, sprouting glass arms, holding each other and wondering what they did to deserve this. After all, they've done nothing but serve the purpose of holding delicious beverags that hydrated both me and baby.

It's a thought that's too much for my hormonal mind to dwell on.

I can't go through it again. Can't send another shard of glass to an eternal fate of landfill purgatory. That's why my kitchen floor is currently covered with glass, plastic and can-filled paper bags waiting to make their way to a recyclery.

The thing is, I need to find one (In a serious way. Our kitchen is quickly becoming difficult for this waddling woman to navigate in). The bummer drag is that Covington actually HAS a recyling program called "Be A Good Neighbor." However, unlike Portland, the city of Covington and it's partner in recycling, Progressive Waste Solutions, don't reach out to apartment complexes. Like I said, bummer drag.

I think the closest place to go is actually in Cincinnati which means Jason and I get to replace our Saturday morning coffee dates that we coveted in Portland with Saturday morning dump dates.

Woo. Hoo.

Mommy-To-Be Reality Check #1

Oh reality. Just like the brisk, bitter winds we're experiencing in the area, reality has a way to smack you in the face. Hard.

While I've already had my first, honest "Oh this thing growing inside of me is a real live baby that I have to push out of me and then take care of until my dying day" reality check, I've yet to be confronted by a reality check about the life altering nature of our yet-to-be-born baby.

Until last week.

The scene was simple. The scenario, harmless. Finished with my glucose tolerance test, I was driving back home from St. Elizabeth, the hospital and health care provider we've chosen as our place of baby delivery. Happy that I FINALLY got to eat after fasting for 12 hours (Pure torture for a pregnant woman, let me tell you!), I comfortably ambled along the middle of a three lane road when ALL OF A SUDDEN! a student driver nearly took my front left side out with a non-looking lane change. I reacted with an anxious haste, cranking my steering wheel with mitten-clad hands into the lane to my right to avoid what would have been a giant, super bummer of an accident.

My blood pressure returning to its statis, I exhaled while signaling back into my original lane of almost-death while slowing to adhere to a red light. The culprit's white sedan idled to my left and I couldn't help but look over to see exactly what my almost assassin looked like.

The poor kid. The amount of panic and terror expressed on his face stamped my heart with a force that I couldn't help but recognize and pity. He was obviously freaked the hell out by his failure to look while changing a lane. Even with my turn-on-a-dime hormones and emotions, I couldn't muster any anger or verbal streams of choice words to throw his way. The incident just made me want to comfort him with compassionate words and advice:

"It's okay dude. You're new, you're learning. Now you won't do it ever again." Of course, in this scenario he knows I'm pregnant, ensuring the knowledge that he could have killed TWO innocent people at once doubly freaks him out, doubly assuring that he'll never make the mistake again (That's my dramatic imagination for you).

That's when the reality hit me: I'm going to be a parent. A real live, actual parent. One of those individuals who raised me with patience and unconditional love. A person responsible for the happiness, well-being and health of an incredibly helpless little human being.

As this realization weighed upon me like my baby on my full bladder, I continued my drive home in deep thought, trying to understand what this all means and exactly how much of a change this will have on my life, on Jason's life and on our life as a married couple. As semis passed me at roaring speeds and I almost automatically took the necessary exits to get home, I couldn't help but admit that I have NO idea what I'm getting myself into. Zero. Zip. Nada.

In the past, being confronted with such a vast endeavor into the unknown would paint the same expression of fear and anxiety the student driver wore upon my own face. But, and maybe this is one of the few good side effects of hormones, for some reason I'm not scared.  I'm actually excited to step blindly into this never-ending adventure. I've got an amazing partner who's on the same page as I am, whose values line up with mine and who possesses the ability to make me laugh when I'm taking life too seriously (which, if you know me well enough, is basically all the time). Moreover, I've got myself, complete with my sanity, a problem-solving brain, creative mind and ability to make a delicious comfort meal whenever it's needed. So, even though I go on uncontrollable bouts of hormonal crying three times a week right now, I'm a pretty strong ally to have.

And to that realization, I'd like to thank the kid who didn't look right when he was changing lanes. Good luck on your driver's test little buddy. I'm afraid you might need it.

Cincinnati: Where Everybody Knows Your Name...

Dahnke (dank) is NOT the easiest name in the world to pronounce. Throughout my 27 years and 9 months of existence I've endured years of first-day-of-class role call, anticipating the end of the Cs and the beginning of the Ds in order to cut off my new teacher and avoid one of the many common (and not so common) butcherings of my last name:

"Amie...D-uh-uhm-hankey?"

"Amie...Donkey?"

"Amie...uhhhh...Duh-honkie?"

"Amie...Dan-key?"

You get the idea. You would also probably get the idea that once married, I would change my name lickety split.

You'd think so. And I would have, were it not for the fact that when it comes to filing papers and turning in forms, I unfortunately do not possess the genes enabling me to do those tasks on time (Yes, I'm knowingly blaming nature, not initiative here).

Thus, 20 months and 4 days into my marriage, I'm still Amie Dahnke.

But that's all about to change, thanks to the power combination of moving to a new state and being pregnant. With moving, I already HAVE to go to the DMV to get a Kentucky license, so I might as well get my name legally changed at that time too; the good old "kill two birds with one stone" never fails. Secondly, it's important to me, and to Jas, that I'm Amie Windsor before Poppyseed comes.

And so, here I am, in Kentucky, working on changing my last name. It's bittersweet; I love my family and where I come from, but I am definitely looking forward to no longer fearing when people try to pronounce my last name.

Here's the kicker: People in Kentucky...they CAN say my last name.

I was at the bank, changing my social security number after it was inadvertently transposed by the incredibly nice man who set our new accounts up, when the teller, who has lost my attention to a Very Important text message, called my attention:

"Miss Dahnke?"

"Say what?"

"Miss Dahnke, right?"

"Oh my gosh. You just said my last name correctly. That like, never happens."

The young man, dressed more like a Pearl District barista than a Kentucky banker (Not that I know a ton of Kentucky bankers, but let's just say that dress code here doesn't typically rise above blue collar fashion), flashed me an adorable, knowing smile and simply said:

"Dahnke is a good German name. I'm willing to bet you most people here can say that correctly."

With that, he handed me receipt and I was on my way.

I think that teller was onto something. Covington, Kentucky, in case you didn't know (Which I didn't until Jas and I visited Epipheo in September), has a rich German history. As mentioned before, it's located across the river from Cincinnati. Founded by three dudes who named the city after their war buddy who died in the War of 1812, Covington was kind of doomed to be Cinci's younger sibling. The river is more shallow on the Covington side, making strong commerce a bit difficult and population growth a bit stagnant.

That's where the Germans enter (In a good, non-WWII way). In 1834 a wave of German immigrants landed in the city and made it their own. German-speaking neighborhoods cropped up and sausage and sauerkraut became a regular aroma on the streets. Two of the original neighborhoods are still thriving today, especially Mainstrasse. Mainstrasse (Or Main Street) is a quirky little row of pubs (Including this awesome establishment that Jas and I ventured into for much needed vittles after our first day of moving), apartments, cafes and small businesses (Like the yoga studio I attend and our go-to laundromat, The Wash Haus). It's a street that reminds us both of Portland - something akin to Alberta Street before it really blew up.

At the heart of the Covington German community is Mainstrasse Village. What I know about Mainstrasse Village so far is that it (with Cincinnati) boasts the world's largest Oktoberfest, second only to Munich. So, come September, make sure to visit us to indulge in a week of German beer, German food (Including local chili joints' celebratory Zinzinnati dogs) and German music.

Lederhosen required. German last names can be left at the door.

Welcome!

So this is life in Cincinnati, Ohio. Or rather, life in Covington, Kentucky.

Or to be truly correct, this is going to be about life in Covington, Kentucky, the small city just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, where Jason, Poppyseed, Big Cat, Little Cat and I now reside.

I know, I still can't quite believe it myself, despite the small bruises I have on my arm from incessantly pinching myself.

How did this happen?

Well, the answer is a version of the same story that anyone tells when they recite why they're moving away from their beloved homeland to some foreign area:

After being laid off in early July, discovering there was a teeny, combined version of the two of us growing inside of me in early August, and being offered an amazing opportunity by Jason's company, Epipheo, to work in-house in Cincinnati as a Senior Designer in September, we packed up our belongings in two pods, lived in between Spokane, Washington and The Sea Ranch, California like nomadic gypsies and eventually headed east.

It seemed like the smartest and most adult-like decision we could make.

That's right, believe it or not, adult-like.

We won't be here forever; in fact, we already have a self-appointed friend in Portland whose main job within the next few years is to ensure that we come back (Apparently there's a saying that those born in Ohio stay in Ohio. We can't let that happen to Poppyseed) to the Best Coast. But for now, Covington is our home.

Most of our friends and family don't know much about the area. Heck, we don't know much about the area. But I figured that maintaining a blog will empower me to share all of the weird and wacky experiences we have here in the midwest; from redefining the "20 minute neighborhood" to learning what "please?" actually means over here, I'll record it all for anyone's viewing pleasure.

"But what's with the blog title?"

Oh right. That thing. The meaning is two-fold:

1. All of our friends and family know that when Jason started working for Epipheo and he was first being wooed to move to Cinci that there was "absolutely no way in hell we'd move over there." Basically, pigs would have to fly.

You must have seen them in the sky by now.

2. Cincinnati has a quirky infatuation with flying pigs, so much in fact, that the flying pig is a bit of a mascot of the city and the namesake of the city's marathon (which I plan to conquer in May 2015). You see, in 1835, Cincinnati was the nation's pork-packing center (mmm, yummy). Five years later, the Queen City was king of the pork-packing world, slaughtering and shipping off 1/4 million hogs annually. You could say Cinci really brought home the bacon. To commemorate Cincinnati's 200th birthday, the city drew up plans to build a riverfront park, complete with a sweet entrance sculpture to the park. The artist, a Mr. Andrew Leicester, decided bronzed, winged pigs would best immortalize the awesomeness of the past 200 years in America.

Well, some people thought it was awesome. Others feared the city would become the laughing stock of the nation (Which, in my opinion, is a bit far reached. Obviously my fellow Cincinnatians need to get out of the state more often as there are far, far worse and laughable places in the US). Long story short: city council meetings were held, supporters wore pig noses and in 1988, the sculptures made their proud debut.

And it's all been porkalicious since then, with local restaurants, shops and festivals embracing the flying pig with flying colors. In fact, you can find flying pig statues all throughout the city. I think my favorite one so far is the Shakespearean swine swooning outside of the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company in Downtown Cinci (And to my Shakespearean-obsessed professors: Yes, I will visit and write up a lavish report for your entertainment soon).

So, as sure as night and day, pigs do fly in Cincinnati.

And with that, Jas and I will learn to fly here, too.