Saturday, June 20, 2009

Craft-y? Me?

I wasn't always. I'm still inclined to say that I'm not. Yet somehow craft bunnies keep exploding their population in my head. Just got back from Michael's (and Old Navy, Target and Great Clips). There, I picked up 150 blank heavy cardstock cards and envelopes, a punch that can make 1"x1 1/2" envelopes, and a couple of mini-punches - a cupid and a dove. They are added to the Martha Stewart Double Craft Elephant Punch I got this week. What about paper? I have near unlimited access to 80# cardstock that was already bound for the recycle-bin, so my punches will be "upcycled". My husband already has an alphabet stamp set (he's always been the crafty one), so I'm about to embark on a new world of card and DIY supply making.

Weird.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Pancake/Mini-muffin Hack (Recipe)

Ingredients:
1 1/4c Bisquick Heart Healthy Pancake mix
1 egg
1/2c 2% organic lactose free cow milk
1/2c coconut milk
1/4c hemp milk
1 jar banana & peach stage 2 baby food
1 tbsn sugar
pinch salt

1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Spray a 24 muffin mini muffin tin ALL OVER (not just in the muffin repositories) with Pam
3. Spoon mixture into each repository
4. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until a fork comes out of a muffin "clean"

Makes 24 mini-muffins.

Ok, so the ingredients and this recipe need an explanation.

First the recipe:
Em has become a bona fide meat-atarian, and getting her to eat vegetables or fully eat fruit is a challenge most of the time. Things that she loved when she was younger, or yesterday can be rejected for no particular reason. We also have about a dozen and a half jars of baby food that were graciously donated to us from a mom of a baby girl a few months older than Em. But, since we never really did jarred foods, they've gone uneaten.

SO! I thought, well, I can mix a jar or two into pancakes and those can be good healthy snacks for her. Last night while mixing up the batter, I was irritated by the thought of getting out the griddle, "slaving" over the pancakes and moreso by the necessity of cleaning said griddle after the cooking.

SO, I thought: mini muffins! I added the last two ingredients to get closer to a muffin/quickbread recipe, but I suspect they're not really necessary.

Ok, now the ingredient explanation:
1. Pancake mix - this is what we had in the house.
2. The various milks - the recipe called for cow milk, I'm trying to get rid of the coconut milk and we're weaning Em onto hemp milk. So, I just mixed them all in.
3. Peaches & bananas seemed a more likely complement to pancakes than squash. But, make no mistake, I plan to use up the squash and carrot jars too. I think the recipe could stand to have another jar of food in it if the milks are reduced.

These were good, and Em and I shared two mini-muffins last night before bed. 2-3 muffins would make a perfect snack for either one of us. I'm looking forward to making these again.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

One year later...

I'm reminded that I should probably do a recap on where I am in the "not that crunchy" world...So, this is an update on this post. It was made a month before baby girl was born, so even I'm interested to see if/how I've changed. EDIT: Before typing this up, I was pretty sure that I've mellowed out. After, I know that I have. And my pre-becoming-a-mom self would have been pretty irritated at mellowing. Post-becoming-a-mom? Mellow is GOOD. :)

Home Births: I'm still about the same. Lots of respect for moms who were able to swing them w/no problems.

Breastfeeding: I'm even more adamant about how important this is for all babies. I'm still not going to harp at someone who through whatever decision process has arrived at formula. But I'll be darned sure that I've provided all the support I can to avoid it if possible!

Babywearing: Great if you can do it. We tried all sorts of slings, and other baby-wearing items. But, every one was uncomfortable/impractical for a variety of reasons. The good news is, we still carry baby girl everywhere, so she still gets the benefits of babywearing - we just lose the benefit of having both hands available for other things.

Vaccinations: We are still following a stagger, refuse and/or delay schedule. I'm well aware of what is required by state law to enter school and I'm planning to that, but still on our own time.

Male Circumcision: I'm more against it now than I was a year ago, but I'm still of the opinion that its not my business to sway somebody one way or another. We all choose different things for our families.

Female Ear Piercing: I've decided to wait until baby girl asks for it. And I will take her whenever that is, whether she's 2 or 12. More than anything its having seen her play with her ears all the time without earrings that's been stopping me. Still have no problem with it on other girls whether they're 3 months or 3 years.

Cloth Diapering: Same. I found a place that delivers in the area finally, but ran the numbers and saw that we are actually saving money on diapers, since baby girl only goes through about 4-5 a day. We'd be going through more with cloth and have to deal with making sure we keep up with deliveries and leaving the old diapers out.

Homemade Food: This is where I changed most radically. Upon moving to baby girl's 6 month birthday the more research I did, the more I realized that Baby-Led Weaning was for us. Its easy, its gloriously lazy, and it is so much fun. I couldn't fathom the idea of laboriously making food just to have it refused and/or wasted. And this way, baby girl gets to really participate in meal times.

Stay-at-home parenting: Its working for us. Finding the balance is the hardest part. Some days we're there. Other days, we limp towards slightly off-kilter.

Co-sleeping: More than a few handfuls of times, baby girl did sleep in bed with us when we felt like she needed the added security. She's still in her crib in our room and the next stop is moving her to her own room. Here's hoping both she and I can survive it.

Homeschooling/Unschooling: I've also changed up a bit here. Though my stepdaughter will be homeschooled, we've decided that a public charter school will be best for baby girl. Unfortunately, it only goes to 6th grade, which is the only reason my stepdaughter couldn't apply (she'll be going into 9th!). I'm SO excited about getting her into this school. They have Latin & Greek studies, but more than that, a much richer curriculum AND higher ratings in all the standard school criteria than any of the public school district schools in our area.

So...I'm still not that crunchy, but I think I've crunched up a little bit in some areas and softened even more in others.

Baby girl's stats @ birth: 6lbs 13oz, 19.5in
Baby girl's stats @ 12 months: 19lbs 8oz, 29.5in

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

We're weaning to hemp milk. Here's why:

- I've pumped for her (EPing), for her whole life, and figured that if she hasn't had the need for formula at this point in her life, why start now?

- Baby girl is lactose intolerant. We'll try cow milk again when she's older to see if that improves, but I'm not going to deal with immediate nasty diapers every time we give her any significant amount (1oz or more) liquid milk products right now.

- I have issues with soy due to thyroid problems in me AND the family, so I won't give that to her.

- Rice milk is all carbs, and no protein or fat

- Coconut milk is all fat, and no protein or carb

- Raw milk (cow or goat) is hard to come by for us and is super expensive.

- Goat milk is pretty expensive, and also not the easiest to come by.

- We have obesity, cholesterol issues and heart disease in the family. When babies older than 12 months have a family history like that, the AAP recommends 2% milk instead of whole cow milk.

- Hemp milk's nutritionals (calories, fat, protein, carb) are similar 2% milk, and has natural omega-3 & omega-6 fatty acids in addition to a good spectrum of vitamins also similar to cow milk

Just wanted to share our process of deciding what to wean to. At the moment, I'm still providing 15oz of EBM daily, but starting next month or so, I'm going to start dropping down the amount we give her so that I can start stashing enough to get her to 2 years after I'm done pumping.

I know its been a while since I've posted. I'm hoping to get into a regular groove.