He who laughs last, laughs hardest

On Sunday Joseph and I were hanging out in the kitchen. I was washing the mountain of dishes that accumulate hourly (seriously - ask my mom), and Joseph was playing with whatever he could get his hands on. I had a pack of root beer on the floor and he thought a can would be fun to play with. I saw him, went over there, decided it wasn't worth a tantrum, and told him to "be careful".

Note: I say that to him all the time, but he definitely doesn't know what it means.

Not 1 minute later, there was a bang as the can hit the floor, then it exploded and sprayed everywhere. The look of horror and terror on Joseph's face was HILARIOUS. He shreaked, flailed about, and tried to scamper away unsuccessfully. I am a terrible mother, but I laughed. It was so funny.

Well, the last laugh was on me, of course. There was root beer all over me, Joseph, the cabinets, the walls, the floor, the table, chairs, high chair, my CLEAN dishes, etc...

So after sticking to the floor for 2 days while re-washing the mountain of dishes, I finally caved tonight and washed the floor tonight at 10pm.

You win, Joseph. You win again.

Minding Manners

We've been signing with Joseph for about 7 or 8 months now. He's made the "milk" sign like 3 times. That's it. He definitely understands "milk", "drink", "eat", and I think he gets "more" but he refuses to use any of them, preferring instead to whine until I discern which whine he's doing. I guess he does have a language of sorts. Ha!

However, the other day I implemented "please" and he will imitate it every time I do it when he wants something. He still won't do the sign in front of it (milk, drink, etc) but he'll sign please right away.

The child knows how to get what he wants!

High-Cal Food Chronicles: Ice Cream (Mommy Edition)

I'd been searching for an ice cream recipe to make at home - regular ice cream has so much junk in it, and the organic stuff is $6/container! My friend Kat tipped me off to this ice cream recipe - it requires no machine! Since I'd been to the farmer's market and picked up heavy cream, it seemed the perfect time to try it out.

Yields: 1 quart
Ingredients:
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1/4 cup of sour cream
1 1/4 cups of heavy cream

Mix condensed milk, vanilla, salt and sour cream until well combined. To it add…

for CHOCOLATE variation: add 5-6 tablespoons {or more to your liking} of chocolate syrup

Mix your heavy whipping cream on high {it would love a cold bowl and cold whisk too} until stiff peeks form {3 or so minutes}. Whisk some of the whipped cream into the condensed milk mixture until incorporated and then gently fold the rest of the whipped cream in. Place in an airtight container and freeze 6 hours before serving!

The results:
I added the chocolate sauce, but it was too sweet for us. I think coco powder would be a better alternative. The mouth-feel is a bit icy due to not using a machine, and I think I could have whipped the cream a little bit more stiffly, but frankly, it's delicious! A great way to control what you are eating... if you can control yourself from eating it all!

I did buy a can of sweetened condensed milk before finding this recipe to make your own... a little bit of work, but worth it to skip the BPA laden canned stuff.

Happy Father's Day!

To my wonderful husband... Joseph is a lucky lucky boy!

Joseph's Bedroom

Only 15 months into it, we finally have a "nursery". As most of you know, Joseph spent the first year plus of his life in bed with us. About two months ago we started working on getting him into his crib. He's been a pretty good sport about it, all around. When he got his molars we had some set backs, but we're back to it. We try to keep him in there (without picking him up/nursing) from 11pm to 6am. He still wakes frequently at night but will go back to sleep pretty easily until 5am. We're still trying to figure out that last hour.

Anyway, here are pictures of his room. I still have some more decorating to do, but it's well on its way to being done!

High-Cal Food Chronicles: Scrambled Eggs

Scrambled eggs are one of the easiest foods to doctor. They taste better once you add all the cream, cheese, etc... and you can add healthy stuff without making them gross!

I've been making Joseph's morning egg this week using:

1 farm's market pastured egg, lightly beaten
1 T organic heavy cream
1 oz organic white colby cheese
1 oz organic frozen chopped spinach

I put all of this in a microwave safe dish (I use a big ramekin), cover it up with little plate (no plastic in the microwave, please!) and microwave on high for 30 seconds. Stir, put it in another 30 seconds, stir, and one more 30 second shot. Fluffy, yummy, cheesy goodness.

Of course, half the time he doesn't want it. The kid is such a finicky eater! But I got my quarterly reassurance by checking out kellymom.com's page on toddler feeding. She made a great point:

"All you need to do is to continue to offer foods. Don't worry if he's not interested or takes very small amounts. Your only true responsibility is what you offer, when you offer it and how you offer it, not whether or not he eats it. That has to be up to him. Trying to force, coax, or cajole your child into eating is never recommended. Continue to nurse on demand, day and night, and trust your child to increase the solids when he's ready. As baby slowly moves into eating more solids, your milk will fill any nutritional gaps nicely."

What a waste

Why can't manufacturers make replacement parts that are REASONABLY priced for their crappy products?

Joseph's go-to sippy is the Nuby Flip'n'Sip. It has a soft spout that he loved to chew on. I've cut two of them down to the little valve thing (which is also broken from chewing). Don't you think they'd realize that this is a common problem with teething children? Not to mention just losing straw pieces... they are small and clear and perfect for garbage disposals.

But no, you can't just replace the straw. You can pay $3 to replace the whole top. The cost of a new cup is only slightly more than that!

I know they do this to make you spend more on their product, but it's so darn wasteful. It makes me mad.

Cloth Diaper Update

We got new diapers yesterday! My most favorite diaper company, Green Mountain Diapers, is rolling out their workhorse diaper. GMD is "famous" in the cloth diapering world for their fabulous prefolds. Those are the square diapers our moms used for us. GMD has fantastic quality and great customer service. In addition, their diapers are affordable. I love my prefolds from them, though I have been going through a love/hate with them because of nasty toddler poo.

Which brings me to the new diapers. They decided to make fitted diapers out of their prefolds! Holler! Same great quality cotton, with elastic and snaps that hold in poo without getting it in 3 different places on a diaper (which renders it impossible to clean without getting my hands IN the toilet).

Best part; they are $6 each! So I ordered a dozen of their beta version of brown edge (large) workhorse diapers. They arrived a day and a half later and I prepped them last night.

Today they were on Joseph's bottom:

Verdict:
1) I'm sure they have not reached full absorbancy (prefold cotton need lots of washing/drying before they are fully absorbant when new) but they already seem as good as prefolds. Prefolds are not as absorbant as some of my premium diapers that have doublers, but on the other hand they should be GREAT for potty learning.
2) They run really small. Joseph is very thin at 18lbs and a bit tall at 31.5", and he fits into these well. The brown edge prefolds are 20-25lbs, and he's still got lots of room in the size before (red edge) so that's a pretty big discrepancy. I do know they are planning to change the sizing on their final versions, though. I'd say these definitely need more rise and width to fit larger kids.
3) The snaps are good - there are enough to get decent sizing. I wish they had a "side" snap on the inside like on my Bububebe's to prevent the wings from falling and give more support at the waist, but honestly it was not a problem today with the diapers, so maybe the design prevents the issue all together with these.
4) Dry time - wow. When I was prepping there were only these dozen diapers in there. The elastic at the back was still damp after 60min on high. I did another 20min and they were good to go. Usually a full diaper load for me takes that amount of time, and that was only half as many diapers! It's a double edged sword, though... that means they are absorbent, right?

I really like these diapers. They are simple, quick, and easier to use than prefolds for people "afraid" of those. They are great daytime diapers, and I think they'll be especially good for the hot summer. We can leave Joseph coverless around the house and just change him when he wets without worrying about the prefold falling off or him undoing the snappy.

You know, until he figures out the snaps!

Very Crafty Mama

No commentary necessary!

High-Cal Food Chronicles: Mac'n'Cheese

In an effort to get more fat and calories into Joseph's diet (while still being healthy) I whipped up the following (inspired by my friend Sara):

1 box Whole Foods 365 Organic Mac'n'Cheese
2 oz organic white colby (just some left over I had)
1/4 c heavy cream
3 T butter
1 c cooked peas
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into steak-fry sized pieces
1 chicken sausage, diced small

put potato in water and bring to boil. Add pasta and cook until tender. Fish out the pieces of sweet potato (that's why you make them long) and mash them. Drain the pasta and add the cream, cheese, butter, and potato. Stir well. Fold in sausage and peas. Try not to eat it - it's yummy but will probably make mama fat.

I put the leftovers in a muffin tin to freeze and save for later meals. Joseph really liked it!

Happy Anniversary!

To four wonderful years with my husband, and a lifetime more!

more pics to reminisce with can be found here

15mo Pedi Appointment

Today we saw our new pediatrician. Our insurance decided to stop allowing us to see anyone outside of their own medical centers. I cannot tell you how irate that makes me. That is neither here nor there, though, as we have to do what we have to do.

We actually had a very good experience. I think we were the first appointment of the day. We showed up 15 minutes early, got called back right away and got him weighed/measured by the nurse, who took care to be funny and make Joseph smile. Then we saw the Doc, who came in immediately and spent a LOT of time with us. He had a great bedside manner and was great at listening to me. He seemed relatively on board with our decisions regarding Joseph's care, and was only marginally annoying with his parenting advice (i.e. warning me about having a 4 year old who won't sleep unless we let him cry-it-out).

The good: Joseph grew 2 inches! He's now 31.5" tall (50-75%) and his head is 18.27" (25-50%). The doctor says he's on track for mental development, in that he is pointing at things and has a few words. Joseph was cruising around the room and the Doc said that he looked great and agreed that he would walk soon. He also was impressed with Joseph's personality - he was really good, smiling for everyone and not even crying during the exams.

That bad: He lost weight. He is down to 18lb 2oz from 19lb 8oz. It can be normal for kids to lose weight at this age as they become more mobile, but he doesn't really have any to lose. He was not on the charts at 12mo when he was 19.5lbs, so he's obviously quite underweight now.

The doctor thinks we should night wean him to encourage him to eat more solids during the day. We had night weaned, but then molars happened. I'd been planning to do it again, though I have to admit that when a doctor tries talking to me about sleep training, it makes me want to do the opposite. Ha!

At the very least, I'm going to start doctoring his food a bit again - adding butter/olive oil to veggies and preparing higher cal meals. Don't get me wrong, he eats eggs with cheese and spinach, whole milk yogurt with banana, pizza, grilled cheese, hummus, meatballs, bread with butter and jam, etc... so it's not like I'm only feeding him fruits and veggies. But maybe I can start doing more "casserole" type foods so he can get some pie crust/cream/cheese/meat mixed in with his veggies.

Mostly, I'm not going to let it bother me too much. He is meeting his milestones, looks healthy, and eats a wide variety of foods. I'd hate to sabotage that by making him nurse less and start pushing treats on him so that he rejects the good stuff. I try to remind myself that T.J. and I are not exactly heavyweights, either, and that Joseph may just be taking after his Daddy (who, incidentally, is not on the BMI charts as an adult).

It's good being a mom

I hosted a mom's group event today, and it was so fun! Everyone brought their wedding albums, I made a wedding cake, and we drank mimosas. The kids got fruit and/or cake, depending on how nice their moms were. Joseph did not get cake, because I'm mean (and he had a banana split yesterday).

I highly recommend this for anyone wanting to host a party - it was so fun to relive and retell our stories with new friends!

Ironically, almost everyone here had a June wedding. Happy anniversaries to us!

The goods: Wedding cake, Mimosas, and Fruit

Nope, that's not really his sippy cup!

I'm pretty sure he stole the cup from Jackson. Poor little guy.

She's gonna be a big sister (see her mama in the background!)

Having a little snack

Cutie Pants

My friend Whitney borrowed my sewing machine, and look what we got in thanks!

An adorable fleece diaper cover!

Action shot!

He's much too fast for me.

Yes, Auntie, I'm mostly naked again... you wanna make something of it?!?

Imagination at Work

Joseph and I were at the park today while Daddy went to practice his golfing. I had him in the swing, but he wasn't going very fast. He looked down, used his pincer grasp to "pick up" something, and popped it in his mouth. He did this over and over again, very proud of himself each time.

But there wasn't anything there - he was playing pretend!

My baby has an imagination! Yippee!

Doing it yourself: Bug Spray Edition

I've used essential oils in the past - most notably for my PUPPS rash during pregnancy. The tea tree oil is also useful for blemishes and cleaning, incidentally.

This time, I was looking for an affordable safe bug spray for Joseph. I've always been a big fan of DEET, but apparently it is not very good for you.

I found some all natural bug spray - but when I checked the ingredients I gave it a big side-eye. $12 for 6oz bottle with a little bit of citronella, lemongrass, and cedar wood essential oil in a 94% solution of water? Psha!

I got a little "co-op" together with my mom's group, ordered some essential oils (EO) and bought some spray bottles and a gallon of distilled water. Voila! All-natural bug spray.

The good news is that it seems to work for Joseph.

The bad news is that it most definitely does NOT work for me, if the 30+ bug bites on my legs are any indication. I'm one of those people that bugs love, though.

I've heard good things about "Oil of Lemon Eucalyptus" so that is my next stop. Since my 8 oz bottle of natural stuff came to $7/bottle, this stuff is still ridiculously expensive. I might see if I can find the oil locally and make my own.

Jen's Knock-Off Bug Spray (Makes 10 8-oz bottles):

4 oz citronella EO
1/2 oz cedar wood EO
1/2 oz lemongrass EO
75 oz distilled water

I combined the EO's and put them into the bottles first, then topped off with the water. Shake well before each use, as there is no emulsifier in this solution. Works based on smell, so reapply often. Safe for clothes and babies!

Il Primo Baccio

Joseph received his first kiss on the lips today at our playdate. Fittingly, from his sweet little Italian friend, Caterina. She's adorable. And she has great taste in boys!

What can he say? The ladies love him.

The little lady

FO: St. Paddy's Day Baby Remake

So my original gift plan for Ella is now on hold and will be used for some other baby, some other time. It was much too short for how wide it turned out, so I tried lengthening it, but had some gauge issues. I'll be ripping it back and giving it an a-line silhouette and making it longer. Someday.

I decided just to ditch it for now and start over on something new for Ella that will hopefully fit her sooner than that other one!


I love how it turned out. I used the Milo pattern as a starting point and made it my own from there by creating an a-line dress and ruffle bottom. Much different than the Milo I made for Maja, eh?

I used this shamrock pattern for the embroidery

And the frantic mama soaker pattern as a diaper cover

A special bond between parent and child

Tonight, Joseph was very tired, but didn't want to go to sleep. I nursed him, I rocked him, I put him in his crib and sat with him, I went and read in the chair where he could see me, I rocked him some more. Over an hour, and nothing. I could tell that he just wasn't very comfortable.

I was starting to get annoyed, but I tried to remember how little time we have left of this sort of thing (the rocking and nursing, I mean) and told myself to let it go and embrace the special time we have.

Finally he got into a comfortable position, and was just looking into my eyes. And I thought "This is great - just being in the moment and watching your child drift off to..."

SNIFF... Ew. What is that?

Here I am waxing poetic in my head about our magnificent bond, and he's taking a dump on my lap.

At least he fell asleep 5 minutes after I changed his diaper.

Pot Pie!

I'm so excited... I made a pot pie today and it tastes awesome - even the crust! I have always pretty much failed at pie crust. This one uses shortening, which doesn't thrill me, but I'll try again w/ butter next time.

Jen's "Get in the Kitchen and Make Me a Pot Pie!" (modified from this recipe)

1 bag frozen mixed veggies (carrots, corn, green beans, and peas)
1 pound chicken breasts
5T + 1 tsp butter
4oz pearl onions (note - I just used the leftover from making coq au vin this week... regular onion would be fine)
1/3c flour
1/2t salt
1/4t pepper
1/4t celery seed
1 3/4c chicken stock
3/4c whole milk
2 - 9" pie crusts

Poach chicken for 10 minutes in salted water. Add the frozen veggies, bring back to a boil, and cook 6-8min more. Remove chicken and shred with a fork. Drain veggies in colander.

Melt butter in skillet and add pearl onions. Cook about 10 minutes on medium heat with salt and pepper. Add in the flour and celery seed and stir for 2 minutes until brown and bubbly. Add in the stock and milk and cook until thickened. Remove from heat.

Make your pie crusts (I used a recipe from my BH&G cookbook, it was 1 1/4c flour, 1/4t salt, cut in 1/3c shortening, and in 4-5T water one at a time, form ball, pat into disk, roll to 12") and put one in the pie pan. Add the chicken and veggies, put the onion and gravy mixture on top. Top with second pie crust. Crimp, trim, and vent the top. Bake at 425 for about 30 minutes.

Enjoy!

Wheels on the Bus

We went garage sailing (sale-ing?) today and found some great stuff. By far the best were these play tent things we got for $6! Joseph is completely in love with them. He was totally wired today from playing in them! They are basically like tents, fold down easily, and I think will be good for the imagination. Plus, cheap and we kept them out of the land fill! Sounds like a win-win-win.

Beep! Beep!

All aboard!

Peek A Boo!

Through the tunnel - so brave!

I think he likes his new toys.

Boomerang Parenting

I'm sure there is a better term for this, but you know how it is. You're going along your parenting business, then things aren't working any more. So you try something new. That goes OK, but then things get worse. So you go back to what you were doing to start with.

All the parenting advice ends with "Whatever you do, be CONSISTENT". I ask you, dear parents, how can you be consistent in your parenting when your child's needs change so frequently?

As soon as Joseph got used to being in his crib all night, he started getting molars. Of course we aren't going to leave him in there to cry in pain all night, so now he's back in our bed. His naps deteriorated around the same time, as he's transitioning to one nap from two. If I put him in his crib, we get 45 minutes, tops. If I nurse him/hold him, I get 2-2.5 hours. Clearly he NEEDS to sleep. So I'm making like he's a newborn again, and nursing in our bed for naps, then picking him up and rocking him when he's woken up and doesn't need to nurse anymore. Since I've started helping him for naps and having him back in bed with us, he has gone from sleeping 10-11 hours/day to 13-14 hours/day.

The whole thing is terribly frustrating, but I'm trying to be zen about it and think of it as meeting his needs. At least I can be fairly certain that this phase is unlikely to last, as nothing else ever has stayed the same!

He knows his nose!

This morning we were reading That's Not My Puppy and on the last page the puppy's "nose is so squashy". Joseph was feeling puppy's nose, and I said, where is your nose, Joseph? And he touched his nose!

We've been working on it for a couple of weeks, and I didn't think he was really getting it. He showed me!

He also understands to close drawers and doors. It's pretty cool!