Tamales with Nanny Kat

After having Everett, the term "maternity leave" seemed like a never ending expanse of time and space that I naively thought would be filled with the completion of oodles of projects. What was actually accomplished amounted to walks - lots of walks. And then, before I knew it, the middle of August was here and I went back to work.

Luckily I have a job with a flexible schedule that allows me to work from home. Every now and then I do have to venture out to visit schools and the eventuality of finding childcare was an unavoidable reality. In an unexpected turn of events our good friend Kat just happened to be living in limbo - between towns and jobs - and took us up on the offer of being our short term live-in nanny. How very white collar of us! Besides being a great nanny and a patient soul as we try to get Ev on a nap schedule, it was fun just to have her around.

So, inspired by a rare cloudy morning, freshly roasted chiles in the fridge and perhaps most importantly, a NAPPING BABY, Kat and I made tamales.

the corn husks

masa

cheese

freshly roasted green chiles

calabacitas

and the perfect package

during which the little guy did a lot of this