Blueberries!

Woohoo! Blueberries were on sale at Target for $1 so, thinking of My Love who refuses to feed himself unless it's convenient, I bought a few. With a blueberry stash on hand it was inevitable that when Teijah requested pancakes this morning so well that it could have been his sister asking I of course obliged and made blueberry pancakes.
For those of you that don't know me personally, Teijah (pronounced Tay-ah in case you were wondering)just started talking so sometimes it's hard to tell him no, or be very frustrated with him for asking me for things when I'm busy (which happens with his sister all the time). This morning he told me "hungry, mom." which is awesome because it was the first time he said hungry. So, instead of pumping like I normally do when I first get up, I went straight to the kitchen. Of course I was followed by my extra tiny 2 1/2 year old who then requested "pancakes, please? pancakes, mom?" Who could say no to that? He even helped put the blueberries on the counter. children are so helpful and polite at this age! Hopefully I find a way to keep him that way. I think having a small child in the house all the time helps, Rowan E. seems to be remember her manners more often now that she sees how much attention her brother gets for it. how effective it is. Now if I could just get her to stop whining and freaking out for no reason so he stops learning that from her. When I figure out how to make a little girl stop whining - you better believe there is going to be a blog post about it! For now she has been informed that any time he acts in said whiny manner she will also be punished - I will not have a house full of whiny children... "whining goes to the bedroom" as we say here and I do not want to have to say it 20 times a day... whoa... so yeah have you noticed the about me at the upper right hand corner?... I warned you I was highly distractable...
So anyway, as I was making a few dozen mini blueberry pancakes (because mini pancakes means no silverware... and I hate silverware, mainly the washing of it) I realized that yesterday was the day that little Ori was supposed to try a new food but he had not. Then it hit me - what better time then now to let him try some blueberries? And what a blueberry mess he was afterward! I refrained the urge to roast the blueberries to make them more blueberry-y because: a.) I already had roasted bananas in the fridge (and it seemed silly to just roast blueberries), and b.) though I know that cooking the berries down make them far more tasty I wasn't sure the nutritional value of the delicate berries would hold up during cooking.

Roasted Bananas w/ Blueberries

2 tbs roasted bananas w/o booby milk (so basically banana concentrate *lol* not banana pudding)
1 or 2 big handfuls of fresh blueberries
optional water, booby milk, whatever for mixing.

Dump bananas & blueberries in food processor or blender, *attempt to blend.
put into storage containers. Feed to happy, unsuspecting baby. Wash blueberry covered baby while imagining he's that girl from Charlie & The Chocolate Factory.

* I say attempt because I attempted to use my 1 cup blender and it was just too thick w/ to small an amount to blend so I added a little water (like I said I did not pump this morning so I didn't have fresh booby milk on hand) so it would blend. Roasted bananas do this cool/weird thickening thing but still be sure not to add too much liquid so you don't end up with a smoothie. :) I ended up with about 4 tablespoons.

And a very merry half birth day to you..

See that? yep that's me with my preggo clone army when I was about 8 months pregnant with "little" Ori. I was also still riding a bike 8 miles a day to work... anywho...
Six months ago today my not so little third child made his exit from me and entered this world. When I think about it now I envision a caricature of myself bent over with legs spread in my bathtub. My face is twisted into some exhausted grimace as I grasp the tub’s edge, white knuckled and holding on for dear life as my companion and my midwife stand on each side of me – with one hand on my son’s cartoon-ishly large head, and a foot on their (my) respective butt cheek for leverage as they try to pull him out. The baby, of course, has a huge grin on his face - (because as everyone knows children plot against us… and he finds the whole thing hilarious.) and my mother is standing by with the oxygen tank. The whole ordeal seems rather humorous now.
Though I suppose it wasn’t so dramatic…
no one planted their feet on anyone’s butt cheeks.
Sometime close to noon the day previous to Ori A.'s arrival I suddenly felt the need to move all the furniture in my house around. I deny that this urge was nesting. Characteristically, I am a messy person and I knew that this baby was going to be here (hopefully soon) and I was going to have a lot more to deal with and I wanted to start off ahead, and I also kind of hoped that all the activity would start labor. So I spent the whole day in a (seriously until 2 in the morning) furniture moving, grout scrubbing, organizing, laundry doing/folding, bathroom bleaching frenzy. Then with some cramping (that I probably had all day but Braxton Hicks contractions were c.ra.zy through the whole pregnancy so I did not pay much attention to it) I decided it was time to try and get some sleep. I took a shower and decided I should try to spend some time with My Love because I had a feeling baby would be there (here) soon. I spent the rest of the night trying to sleep, and getting up, walking around because whatever pains I was having were too much to sleep through, then the nausea hit. It was awful and with it came diarrhea. The nausea and a fever lasted into the afternoon when I finally vomited and felt a little better. *lol* The My Love came to tell me goodbye since he was about to ride his bike far far away to tutor his middle school children. I told him he could not leave me, after a discussion of whether it was time, whether he would be able to get back in time, and how I did not feel capable of taking care of the children he called and rescheduled. After awhile it became apparent that I was actually in labor - terrible labor where all the contractions felt like end stage contractions. I spent my time walking around, and alternating between the bath, the shower, the rocking chair, and oh yeah screaming there was lots of screaming. Worst labor. EVER. Seriously the contractions never intensified right from the beginning it felt like those right before you can push contractions, that is until those contractions when, you know, I was pretty sure I was going to die, and/or something was terribly wrong... but I didn't want to look like a sissy so when the urge came (and it came often) to scream out what the f*** is wrong with you people take me to the hospital and cut this thing out of me I told myself to suck it up or at least keep quiet, you know, besides all the screaming. I told My Love that I wanted my mommy so he called her and let her know it was time to come (she took an eternity BTW, love you mom). Then eventually he called the idiot midwife who shall remain nameless. Active labor was filled with lots of screaming, crying, and giving up... I would even try to stop breathing and just float in the bath. Anything I tried to do to cope with the pain only worked for a moment. It. sucked. At last I could feel the baby's head crowning. I Thanked God! quite loudly and announced the accomplishment. I thought I had finally come to my sweet relief, that wonderful pushing stage where all the pain seems to subside in natural childbirth... but not this time. Crap, it was strait crap. I pushed and pushed, Idiot Midwife was no help. After what seemed like an eternity my sons huge head was finally birthed, in the process My love had hoisted me out of the water so I was now standing up bent over the bath. I pushed and pushed but our sweet baby was very much stuck. I pushed they pulled, but it felt as though they were trying to push him back in, so I asked why the hell possibly f*** they were pushing on me - like I wasn't having a hard enough time holding my exhausted shaking body up. Eventually (and I mean a really long eventually) or baby was out (I scream OH Thank GOD!) and not screaming or breathing just making some very low rattling noise. I was dying to turn around and sit as opposed to being in that damned 'on all fours position' but Idiot Midwife felt the need to put baby on my back (like I'm a table or something). She sent my mom to get the oxygen tank and asked if it had a name, we asked what it was, A boy she exclaimed. We told her Ori and then for what (again) seemed like an eternity we all talked to the baby and slapped his back. "Come on baby" over and over again. Then he cried his loud foghorn cry that lasted for the first few months, pushing me past my sanity threshold... I think he misunderstood what we were going for. And we had our second son. Our 10 lb 23-24in (the Idiot Midwife didn't stretch out his leg when she measured)son Ori Azariah who's name in Hebrew means "My Light" "Is helped by god". He was a black and blue mess after all that being stuck and not breathing, I do have one terrible picture that was taken on the wrong settling just as my battery died:
I know terrible, right?
Eventually the bruising went down and he got a nice red colour to him, *lol* then he turned orange - but what can you do?
Here he is looking less like a boxer that lost the fight and died (thanks to the camera setting) and more like Mr. Magoo the next day.

And here he is looking less puffy (and rocking his baby legs) on day 4.

Now just for fun here are pictures of Rowan Elíse (sorry this picture was taken when 3 megapixel was alot and i had a 1.5 megapixel camera*lol*):

And Teijah Matthias

When they were around six months.



and if I find my camera I may add one of the little half birthday boy here. stupid missing camera.
These were his first socks (and Babylegs):

and this was supposed to be his first hat:

but it kept falling off so he wore the bigger pink version that I made, you know, just in case he was a girl.
and here's his bed that is about to get lowered, and switched to the hungry caterpillar sheets in preparation to move him into his brothers room.

Ah they grow up so fast and this little man is certainly no exception to the rule! He is my go, go, GO! baby and is in such a hurry that he is far ahead of where his brother and sister where at this point. *sighs* Now I'll spend the rest of the day reminding myself that I want to wait for the next one, and that I do NOT actually want to be the next Michelle Duggar. :)

Baby's got Back!

Well we are officially cloth diaper-ers! The last part of my stash (which was oddly the diapers) got here yesterday. Then of course I had to wash them one million times to "prep" them... okay it was just three times. I had really wanted to get my boys into cloth last night but with all the washing, shopping for stupid enzyme free detergent (without success) and salmon cooking (why is salmon always takes longer to cook then it's supposed to?) it just didn't happen. The salmon was super yummy by the way. Anyway so I know you're just dying to know all about my starter stash, *lol* and even if you're not I'm excited to tell you.
Here it is!

16 Kissaluvs fitted Colours! (4 blue, 4 green, 4 natural, 2 yellow, and 2 orange... if you must know), to the left are 4 Thirsties hemp inserts, and to the right are 10 Kushies cotton inserts. I also got 2 Kushies wraps, which are effective but are simple, plastic and dull and I am far less proud of, these wool longies/shants modeled by beautiful tiny (25 lbs BTW) Teijah:

and these:
front

and back

for some reason neither pair of longies felt like being photogenic, but Teijah totally rocked them on his way to nap in his big boy caterpillar bed.
What's that? Where did I get this fantabulous upcycled, handmade *duh* wooley gear? Well I'm glad you asked. *grins* As you all know Etsy is truly my favourite place to shop; and procrastinate, and window shop *hint: if you ever for whatever reason felt the need to by me presents check out my favourites by clicking the Etsy sidebar* :) Ah, I can dream, can't I? Well, I found these gems at an Etsy shop called Treebottom Wool. Teagan was awesome and was quick to answer my millions of many questions, and she even does custom pieces! I am so ordering a bright blue soaker (those are the ones that look like underwear, shorties = shorts, longies = pants... now you're educated *lol*) with the superman S on the butt when I get my job issues worked out!
Our first day of cloth diapering is going great except for the fact that after I changed the "last" poopy disposable, my little man decided to have the largest poo ever in his shiney new cloth diaper... and me not expecting a poo did not use a flushable liner... not that it would have mattered anyway because, like I said it was the biggest. Poop. Ever. But you know what? there was absolutely no poo outside the diaper! In fact I just thought he had urinated through, which apparently only happened because of the massive poo overload. Awesome. Little man does not need covers at home, at least for now *lol* unless he's on my bed or napping.
The best parts about cloth diapering so far (other than the ginormous poo not being on my house) seem to be things like:
a.) how my "thick" bottomed baby now has a faux bubble butt to go with his thickness.

"Smiles" (who is officially 20 lbs) is teething and is uncharacteristically un-smiley.

*grins* But, he's still willing to pose. Moving on.
and b.) Now I get to add a new "no - stop that" sentence to my resume... possibly the best ever:
"No, Teijah the baby's butt is not a pillow!"

Teijah laughing:"PILLOW!"

"No, silly! That's the baby's diaper!"
The. Best.
Oh, and one more...

because she (who is 50 pounds... officially of course *lol*) was feeling left out. :o)

Starting Solids: Stage 1 Oven Roasted Bananas

Considering my obsession w/ banana sticker boobvertisement I felt that it was only fitting that little Ori's first solid food be bananas. And shush he's 5 months 3 weeks... I think that one week isn't going to make much a difference. That being said for the past month my dear youngest child has been fascinated by all things food; staring intently as people ate or chewed, reaching out and trying to grab said food or utensil, and sometimes managing to grab the a fore mentioned utensil which successfully led to food being tossed. Bottom line? He was ready. Which is something that I think is important; all babies are going to think the new experience is a little weird but you shouldn't have to force them into eating solids. For instance, Teijah, who is finally becoming an avid eater really didn't eat consistently till after he was one - he was indeed my little veal chop and would avoid solids at all costs.
Wait what was that? What about rice cereal? Well it turns out studies have been revealing that grains may not be the best things to start little people off on where digestion is concerned, a better choice for first foods may very well be easily digestible things such as fruits, orange veggies, or avocado(yum). So on to the bananas!

First (depending on how you currently choose to nourish your little one and how you are planning on storing your homemade baby food) you'll need to pump some booby milk.

Tah-dah! Did I mention my deep sympathy for cows? Ah, what was that, can you use frozen? No. No, you can't. More on that later.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.

Choose your banana *lol*
Of course I chose by sticker but you can choose however you would like.(Set sticker aside for later use.)
Next, cut your chosen banana into small uniform pieces. You can do them like this:
or this (but add five minutes or so to your cook time):
Then line a pan, (cookie sheet, cake pan, whatever) with aluminum foil *note to self: buy that non-stick aluminum foil for future baby food making endevours* You want to avoid greasing it, spraying it with Pam or anything like that because it's important that babies first food are simple and single ingredient to keep track of any allergic reactions. I suppose you could also eliminate the aluminum foil.. if you like to scrub dishes but I myself am bad at hate to clean so I try to simplify the mess and as a bonus aluminum foil is recyclable.
Place bananas in a single layer on foil.
place pan in oven *duh* and cook for 15-20 minutes. Get out trusty mini food chopper/processor thing. I got this Chef Mate one at for $9.99 at Target.
I'm not sure how great it will be at grinding up grains and legumes later on in our baby food making adventure but it certainly does the job for now.Place slightly ugly bananas into mini chopper.
Remove aluminum foil from pan, roll into a ball, and toss it into your recycling bin/basket/whatever... just recycle.
*A note about roasting: Roasting does not always render the prettiest fruits and veggies but it does concentrate their flavours (i.e bananas are banana-ier, sweet potatoes- you get my point)and make them extra yummy without added salt or sugar - or anything really, and you get all this with minimal alteration of the nutritional value of said foods.Blend banana into a smooth puree. Now here's were you start to have options. Here's what I did this time: Add a couple of ounces of booby milk to thin out bananas to an easy to swallow consistency.
Decide you don't want to add anymore booby milk, i.e: liquid gold into these stupid bananas and decide to thin out the bananas more later. Then place roasted bananas con booby leche into reuseable single serving sized containers I did 2 TBSP per container.

Place extra servings and booby milk safely in you refrigerator.

Place reserved banana sticker on babies head in commemoration of this momentous occasion.

Take bad picture with camera in one hand and baby food container and spoon in the other but love it anyway because it's documentation of your baby's first bite.

Offer baby water every few sips to help him wash down his yummy bananas.

When baby decides he (or she) is done clean him (or her) up and let them experiment with there newest feeding tool.

Yes, I do ♥ the colour orange. Now sometimes new experiances can be alarming, even for the most ready babies.

I imagine they may even worry if they will ever have their booby again. So it's important to comfort them, reassure them, and even offer them a booby.

After all that work baby may even take a nap, giving you a break to, you know, clean up after all the other children who probably had a cereal fight when you were having your booby time with your youngest.

*About breast milk: Now these bananas definitely need something to thin them out. Breast milk storage guidelines still apply so if you use frozen breast milk you can not freeze the bananas baby food cube style, and if you use fresh breast milk keep in mind that microwaving or cooking the bananas pretty much kills all the extra benefits the breast milk adds so if you plan on making large batches and freezing you'll have to defrost the bananas under running warm water (just like breast milk). For more information on this and pretty much anything else you want to know about making your own baby food visit my new favourite website: wholesomebabyfood.com

MisAdventures in Cloth Diapering

Ha Ha! I finally got my hands on my loves laptop! Trust me it is a great accomplishment... he is so computer stingy. Seriously when my laptop wasn't broken and his was he had mine constantly. *grins* okay moving on..

(from 5.21.09)So over the course of the last month I have become completely disgusted with disposable diapers and pretty much everything about them; the way they leak, they way breast milk poo gets on his clothes, my clothes, my bed, my arm, and pretty much anything he's sitting on when he decides to "poo sideways" or get excited and frantically waves his arms and legs - which happens often and is usually followed by something else I'm so over: the way he pukes when he gets excited which (I will say again) is often, but that's a different story for a different day.
I also hate the way that all these disgusting, unattractive, disposable diapers seem to get randomly scattered around my house... (usually Teijah is the culprit. He is still in a diaper at nap and bedtimes and tends to take them off and toss them where ever he happens to be standing when he remembers diapers are gross and for babies and he does not want to or should not be wearing one because he is a big boy.) and how when I am working they seem to pile themselves on my side of the bed. I seriously fantasize about exacting my revenge by stuffing My Loves pillow case with a days worth of diapers... but then I remember he sleeps next to me. The whole thing just baffles me because he's so ridiculously neat and tidy when it comes to everything else... which makes me think that perhaps he's doing it on purpose to make some point about something..
So after a ridiculous amount of obsessive research and then settling for "cheaper" fabrics, much more obsessive research, and a slightly embarrassing Paypal mishap; our brand spanking new cloth diaper stash is in route to our sweet little boys deserving bottoms. Personally I can't wait for my diaper stacker to be full of bright, shiny (ok so they aren't shiny), colourful cloth! *heh* and if they get left around the house I know a few boys that are going to be wearing them on their heads.