Things I learned today

1. Griffin loves Goldfish. Secondarily, Penelope loves feeding her brother.

2. Griffin is not allergic to peanut butter (see part b of #1).

Ordinarily we wait until after a year to introduce peanut products. Some places recommend waiting up to 2 years, but since we have no family history of food allergies I think that's a little overly cautious. One year works for us - except when you have an almost 10 month old with Stretch Armstrong arms and a 2 year old who thinks it's fun to feed said almost 10 month old.

But while G loves the PB&J, he's not in love with the bread. I think it's the texture.

We usually wait on the Goldfish as well. They're not exactly health food; they're made with whole grains though... still. Anyway, Penelope and Griffin conspired to move up the date of his first taste of the orange crackers and now he's hooked. Of course, I'm not going to feed them to him every day - too much salt - but if he gets a hold of one every once in awhile I'm not going to flip out.

He's probably ready for a lot more table food that I've been giving him. I don't know why I've been so hesitant to start table food. Maybe it's because he's my last baby and I want to stretch out the baby stage OR (and more likely) I don't want to deal with the insane mess that is a baby and table food. Insane.

I have 1,000 other things to blog about, but G is actually napping in his crib so I will take this time to be productive. The moment I start said productivity he will promptly wake up and need to be nursed for the remainder of his nap.

The Vegan Experience - Update

So it's been awhile since I posted about our Vegan Adventure. I had grand plans to post recipes and ratings but those, obviously, have not come to fruition.

The success or failure of this experiment depends entirely upon who you ask. And since this is my blog, you're asking me - and I think it's great.

Although if I'm being realistic then I have to acknowledge that Penelope has only tried the vegan baked goods and Bryan has only sort of liked one dish (the vegan "mac & cheese"). Penny wouldn't even try the mac & cheese.

I have liked 90% of the things I've cooked. The quinoa salad is perhaps my favorite... followed by the pumpkin cake. Then there's the black bean soup, the rosemary foccacia, the mac & cheese, the chocolate cookies, the banana bread, the saffron rice (so good), the curried veggies... I'm making myself hungry!

The only thing I wasn't impressed with was the marinated portobello mushrooms, but they really should have been served like hamburger patties. On their own they were only ok. The broccoli polena was just bland - but if I use a sauce then it might turn out better.

This week our vegan meal will be another round of the "macdaddy" (i.e. the vegan version of mac & cheese). I might make curried veggies again since I though it was amazing.

Bryan's been a good sport about the whole thing though. He eats what I make and only rarely complains.

While I'm not technically dieting, I've lost about 6 lbs so far. I could probably loose more if I kicked it up a notch and started really exercising, but that would require effort and energy.

Going Vegan

We're not actually going Vegan (although a part of me would like to) but one of my New Years Resolutions is to eat healthier and expose the kids (and Bryan) to a wider variety of foods.

So for the holidays I received Veganomicon a Vegan cookbook. Some of the recipes are a little odd (for me, a lifelong meat-eater) but many of them look absolutely delicious.

I'm planning on cooking at least one completely vegan meal a week and then having vegan side dishes to compliment some of our meaty meals.

I will, however, be cutting back on our meaty meals and for a variety of reasons. Meat is very delicious, but factory farming is not. I cannot, in good conscious, continue to purchase meats so unethically and unhealthily raised and slaughtered. And we can't afford to buy "range-free" "grass fed" meat for every meal. So we're cutting back on the meat while still keeping it in our diet. Besides, Penelope isn't much of a meat eater.

Tonight's Menu? Marinated portobello mushroom caps and broccoli polenta.

I may or may not take pictures. I have a friend with a recipe blog who posts amazing recipes and takes beautiful pictures - I would love to emulate her, but my kitchen is a mess, my camera is crappy, and I don't want to commit to pictures of every meal since I doubt I'll remember.

But I will post later about whether or not it was a hit. The mushroom caps are marinating right now and it smells DELICIOUS.

5 month birthday

So Griffin turned 5 months old last week and I neglected to post about it on the day. Oops!

But better late than never, right?

At 5 months G is 28.5 inches and ?? lbs. We haven't gotten him weighed yet this month. Hopefully I'll be able to schedule his first pediatric appointment in the next week or two. He needs to get started on his shots.

Here's his length chart:


And his weight chart from last month:


In other news, tooth #2 made its appearance today! Hopefully we get a bit of a break before the next set, I'd like to get some sleep!!

He's stating to sit up now, not on his own just yet, but close. I think by 6 months he'll be sitting up all by himself!

We also started some solids, avocado mixed with breastmilk. In a few days we'll intro green beans, and go through the veggies before starting with fruits. No cereal this time around. Maybe later.

Here's a recent picture:

Today, January 6th

So today was productive - for the most part. It started off with a trip to the mall (see previous picture blog post) and ended with a very rare dinner out in which Penelope boycotted everything but broccoli and milk.

I started a new class this week - it's a Health Education class and while there's going to be a lot of work involved, none of it seems particularly difficult (at least so far). I'm going to try and get a little ahead on the assignments so that I'm not scrambling the last week to get everything done. We'll see how that goes.

I was able to get some homework done today, in addition to applying for 4 different teaching/tutoring/mentoring jobs, meeting with my attorney (I can say "my" attorney now that we signed an agreement), reading Marvin K Mooney Will You Please Go Now 14 dozen times, and cleaning the kitchen (ok, so I just did dishes and washed bottles - the kitchen could still use a real cleaning, but I'm counting it). There were a few more things on the To-Do list, but they'll just have to wait. I'm tired.

Yesterday was busy as well and I started having some contractions while we were out and about (had some today too). Nothing painful, regular, or particularly worrisome - but it does mean that I need to take it easy. I forget that I'm 26 weeks pregnant sometimes and do things that I probably shouldn't. The added stress of being unemployed and the accompanying financial woes doesn't help and is probably a significant factor... although it's not abnormal to have these kind of Braxton Hicks contractions at this point in the pregnancy. I didn't get them with Penelope until I was much farther along, but second babies tend to speed things up (from what I've been told) so I'm not worried.

And just for fun, here's what Penelope ate today:
8 strawberries
almost 1/4 cup oatmeal
3/4 banana
1/2 string cheese
4 flax crackers
4 apple wagon wheels (they're a Gerber toddler snack)
nearly a cup of macaroni
a bite of avocado
1/4 head of broccoli
1 bite of grilled cheese
12 oz of milk
at least 14 oz of water
and a dozen or so sweet potato Puffs (another Gerber toddler snack)

I won't recount what I had :)

Tomorrow is homework, homework, and more homework while my Dad babysits. Friday is Art Beast. Hope everyone has a wonderful end of the week!

Where's the Baby?

A quick post:

When I ask Penelope "Where's the baby?" she'll point to my belly, it's cute :)

She also signs the word "please" although still has to be reminded when to use it, but I'm super happy that she knows the sign (well, her own version of it) and uses it to ask for things.

She's walking more and more, but still not all the time. It'll happen, and I'm glad she's at least walking part of the time. It makes things a little easier on Mommy.

Yesterday she fed herself her entire lunch! Half a peanut butter & jelly sandwich and string cheese. I still haven't given her an opportunity to practice using a spoon since I dread the mess it would create - but that will come eventually.

When she holds crayons, drumsticks, or the mallet thing for her xylophone, she has to hold them delicately at the VERY end of the stick. Which makes it difficult to properly color, drum, or play a song but no matter how much I model or mold her hand she moves it back down to the very end.

Favorite foods as of 12 months: broccoli, bananas, strawberries, anything pasta (especially mac & cheese, but what kid doesn't like that?).

Ok, have to go - I have a TON of stuff to do today and less time to do it in.

The Great Breakfast Experiment and other things

So I don't forget, I plan on talking about:
*The Great Breakfast Experiment and food
*Our new laundry game
*Sleep

So on to The Great Breakfast Experiment!

Lately Penelope has been refusing to eat lunch and dinner unless she gets to feed herself. This generally isn't too much of an issue since those foods are usually easy to eat with your fingers (although watching P eat rice and small shell macaroni has been entertaining to say the least... and messy. Very very messy). Anyway, I figured breakfast would be the next on our boycott list since her normal breakfast is not something she can feed herself. She gets 1/4 cup of Quaker oats mixed in with some hot water and a half a jar of Stage 3 baby fruit. It's not soupy, but you definitely need a spoon to eat it and we're not quite there yet.

So yesterday I bought frozen whole grain waffles and a variety of fruit and this morning I cut them up into convenient little bites and set some in front of her. She ate a few blueberries and some of the strawberries, decided raspberries were better in babyfood form, and refused to have anything to do with the waffles. Then she decided that it was much more fun to mash the fruit together than actually eat anything. I tried to feed her myself but that failed as well, so I mixed up her oatmeal breakfast and viola! she ate the whole bowl without fuss.

So I don't think she's ready to feed herself breakfast quite yet. I don't know what it is about breakfast that's different than the other meals... at least the waffles will keep for awhile until she is ready to eat them and she'll eat the fruit for snacks so nothing will really go to waste.

This brings us to laundry! Penny's usual way of "helping" mommy fold laundry consists of either pulling things out of the laundry basket and throwing them onto the floor or grabbing the freshly folded laundry off the couch and throwing it onto the floor. Can we say NOT helpful?

Yesterday however we happened upon a laundry game that she enjoys and is somewhat helpful. She grabs the laundry out of the basket and hands it to mommy to fold :) She generally hands me clothes faster than I can fold them and things would be easier if I did it on my own, but she has fun and I like to encourage her helping out. So this game can stay. She also loves it because I tell her "thank you" verbally and in sign language every time she hands me something. It makes her laugh, and anything that makes folding laundry fun is worth it (because lets be honest, it's a crappy chore).

And now sleep... I'm 90% sure she's getting another molar in because her sleep has been crappy. Well, crappy for her which would be pretty darn awesome for some babies I know. She wakes up around midnight and comes into bed with us where she proceeds to toss and turn (asleep, mind you) pushing either Bryan or I off the bed. It's awesome. (yes, that was sarcasm). Last night she stole Bryan's pillow and the night before she headbutted me multiple times in her sleep.

Although this is better than waking up every half an hour to go into her room and comfort her, even though one of these days I'm going to end up with a black eye.

Once the molar(s) come in we can hopefully go back to our super awesome sleep pattern of 8-7 or 7:30 in her own crib, but we'll see. She's got her two lower molars now so we need the two upper and then all four of her eye teeth.

I hate teething.

Ok, I think that's all for now.

Forgot 2 things

1. Last night was the first time we ordered a separate meal for Penny off the kids menu. She got a cheese tortilla crisp and ate about 1/3 of it... a week or so ago we were out with friends (including baby Sophia) and we ordered the girls a salad to split (avocado & tomato) and she chowed that down. So she's had her first split meal and her first separate meal!

2. She's starting to repeat words. Daddy is one, but others she's said have been: tights, wookie, and cat. None of these actually count as first words, she's just repeating sounds. It's still fun (and funny).

I took video today...

But haven't uploaded it yet. I'm only telling you this because I need to be held accountable and if I don't put it out there it'll sit dormant on the video camera until Penelope's second birthday.

It's really cute.

Anyway, we have some new firsts. Today was the VERY FIRST TIME Penelope has EVER fed herself. I am so beyond excited... part of me was convinced I was going to be feeding her until she was 13. But nope! Tonight at dinner she picked up a tortilla chip (we were at a Mexican Restaurant) that we had given her to play with (she likes to crumble them into little pieces and throw them on the floor - we are the bane of all waitstaff). Anyway, she picked it up AND PUT IT IN HER MOUTH! And then ate it! And picked up another one and ate some more!

I seriously got teary eyed at the restaurant. I wish I was kidding.

Other new-ish stuff (I cannot remember if I've blogged about this before and am way too lazy to go back and check).
*Playing with the shaker egg... so we've been going to music classes for ages. She dances and is absolutely fascinated with guitars, but has never really taken the shaker egg and given it a good shake. But today (incidentally, NOT during music class) she picked one up and went to town. Shaking it to her own special rhythm, and even clapping with it in her hand. Cute!
*Clapping - all the time. If I ask her to show me "Yea!" she claps like a mad woman.
*Kissing on command - that sounds awful, but it's not. If I ask her for a kiss she'll give me one. Of course, then she won't stop. She sometimes tried to eat my face. I can't tell if I birthed a Jezebel or a Zombie. Maybe both. She doesn't do it for everyone though, so far it's just a few people - so it's not like she's making out with random strangers... just mommy *lol*
*Kissing BOYS. Well, just Orson. The two of them are hilarious... Orson is just hilarious - he'll kiss whatever girl is sitting next to him. Kim & Matt are going to have their hands full, I wonder whose karma this is coming back to haunt them? Hopefully my karma never comes back to visit me, otherwise I'm locking both of my children up in convents until they're 30.

Pictures and video later, I promise.

4 things

1. Penelope is becoming increasingly mobile. Every day her walking and balance improve... she's been brave enough to let go of our hands a couple of time and although she's still not standing or walking without a little support, she's doing very well for an 8 1/2 month old.

2. Food! Dinnertime gets much more fun now that I always give her a little of what we're having for dinner. She loves loves loves pasta and is pretty good with everything else. Things she's recently tried: kalamata olives (yum!), tomato, onion, red bell pepper, and sprouts. She also likes rice, broccoli, cheese, and bread. Her primary source of nutrition is still formula, but there's a significant amount of baby and grown-up food in the mix.

3. She's in size 2T. Not exclusively, as there are still a few 18 & 24 month outfits that fit... but we bought her some new clothes and they're all 2T. Some of them are a little big, but they're really not all THAT big. I washed them today so we'll see how they fit on her tomorrow. I promise to take some pictures since I've been really lax about doing that lately.

4. The band! We perform on September 13th at Harlows in Sac. Should be fun. Our current set list is: Help I'm Alive by Metric, Psycho Killer by The Talking Heads, 99 Luftballons by Nena, Sunday Morning by No Doubt, White Room by Cream, Somebody to Love by Jefferson Airplane, & Don't Get Me Wrong by The Pretenders.