Meet Our Muppet

One of the things I love about Thatboy is that we are on the same page about things more often than not. Like finding out the sex of our unborn child. Both of us wanted to wait until birth to discover whether we'd be having a son or daughter.

And not knowing made the whole pregnancy a little more fun. We got to envision what life would be like with a little boy or girl. We got to come up with two different name options. Many people expressed disturbance that we weren't finding out. Among other things, they told us we wouldn't be able to bond with the baby if we didn't address the child by name from the first moments of conception.

I blame my BA in theater, but I'm superstitious. Frankly, even if we knew the sex, we wouldn't have used a name until birth for fear of putting a kenahora on the health of my unborn child. Instead we lovingly used a pet name for Thatbaby all through the pregnancy and beyond. He was our Muppet - or Mupps for short.

The Muppets have always held a special tie between Thatdad and I. It goes alllll the way back to when I was a baby myself. There's a joke that for the first week I was home, I kept my mouth shut. Around week 2 it opened and I haven't stopped making noise since. I was queen of the colicky babies and the only way my parents could get me to sleep is if Thatdad kept me at a 45 degree angle against his chest. And so every night he would rock me to sleep while watching The Muppet Show. Our little nickname became a way of including Thatdad in the birth of his grandchild.

After Thatbaby was born we asked our friends to give us a couple of weeks to get settled before we'd start entertaining visitors. Last weekend we hosted an open house so that our friends could finally get a chance to meet the little guy they'd been hearing so much about.

It only made sense to theme our little get-together as a chance to Meet the Muppet. We chose to the host the party in the middle of the day so we could load our guests up with sugar instead of real food.

Don't worry - there were vegetables available too. Which is good, because Harvard informed me that he had a dentist appointment the next day.

And I once again enlisted the very talented services of Wan in creating the perfect Muppet-themed treat for our guests.

Since this was an open house, we weren't sure when the guests would leave, or when they would stop arriving - so I went with something easy for Thatboy and I for dinner. And you all know what that means, right? Pasta!

In this case a baked ziti is exactly what the doctor ordered. Since it only tastes better the next day and is quick to reheat. It also left lots of leftovers, which is important since Thatboy started back up at work last week. And having an easy lunch was such a nice thing to have when I was home alone with the baby for the first time.

Baked Ziti
1 box of ziti
3 cups of your favorite marinara sauce
1 lb of fresh ricotta cheese
2 cups fresh mozzarella cheese, shredded
1 egg
1 tsp dried oregano leaves
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
Parmesan cheese, thinly sliced

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Cook ziti.
2. When ziti is cooked, mix it with half of the marinara, the ricotta, mozzarella, egg, oregano, garlic, and pepper.
3. Spread ziti mixture in a large baking dish and top with the remaining sauce. Spread the parmesan across the top and cover. Bake for 30 minutes.