What to do with 64 jars of baby food a month

As I've mentioned before, we don't do purees and spoon feeding. On the rare occasion that I did spoon feed Craz-E, it was homemade mashed foods like squash and applesauce. I had NEVER bought a jar of baby food until this past month.

We get WIC food checks and with PrincesS now over the 6month mark, that means she gets checks for baby food. It was rather annoying when we got the checks and she said we were going to get all these jars of baby food and boxes of baby oatmeal. I tried to explain that we don't do purees but there was nothing she could do; it was either the jars of puree or nothing. So I grudgingly accepted the checks and thought I'll figure out something to do with all that baby food.

So I go with the first check and get 32 jars for fruits and vegetables. That's a LOT of jars of baby food. I had to find a box and stash it all in the lowest cabinet in the kitchen.

Then I figured, what the heck, let's give this spoon-feeding a shot. I mostly don't do it cause I'm lazy and don't want to spend half an hour shoveling food into my child's face. But I'll suck it up and do it.

She gobbled up a jar of bananas (and we know she loves bananas cause she eats pieces of banana for breakfast every morning). But I'm guessing her belly prefers it when SHE regulates the speed at which food enters. Cause she was fussy, coughing and even threw up a little that night which I'm thinking was a result of some reflux. Spoon feeding doesn't seem to work in this house. Just as well since it was setting off alarms in my head as I was doing it. I've learned when Momma Alarms are going off, it's for a reason.

So, now I have 60 jars of various fruits and vegetables sitting in a box under my counter. And I'm supposed to get 31 jars of "Meat" this month too. (I haven't decided if I'm going to get those cause the thought of pureed/liquefied beef kinda turns my stomach.)

What to do with all this liquid fruits? So I decided to try something.
First, I got a Munchkin Fresh Food Feeder.
Then I spooned the baby food into my ice cube tray and put it in the freezer over night. (One 4oz jar made 8 cubes.)
The next morning, I popped the baby food cubes out of the trays, stuck one in the mesh feeder and handed it over to PrincesS.

GENIUS!!!

Icy cold goodness that she can handle on her own! She'll chew and suck on the mesh feeder, eating about 2-3 cubes in a meal.

Perfect for teething too.

I tried to get Craz-E to try one but I think the mesh feeder thing threw him a bit.

So I started brainstorming again.

What could be better on a hot summer afternoon then a juicy ice pop? And who needs those "Contains no fruit juice" things that are just frozen sugar water when you can make pure fruit ice pops! Just spoon the baby food fruit into a Popsicle mold and freeze! No sugar, no junk, just fruit! Maybe get some yogurt and mix it up to make smoothie pops. And at 3yo, Craz-E won't know the difference. To him, it'll just be a Popsicle. SNEAKY!!

Is it ME Time yet?

There are times when you just know that you are not getting enough quality ME Time. I have a few right off the top of my head that have happened in the past month.

First, Hubs was so incredibly sweet for Christmas. He got me a Spa Day. He said "You deserve it!" And you know what?....I DO! But the even sweeter part of the gift was that rather then go and get a gift certificate for a specific amount of money or a special package from the Spa, he just handed me the "menu" from the spa and said "Go do what ever you want to do!" BLANK CHECK! I get to do ANYTHING I want. Not just ONE thing, ANYthing.

So I start looking over the menu, get out my highlighter to mark the stuff I want. Number One item on my list, a massage. After birthing 2 babies, 3 years of Stay At Home Mom-ing and carrying around babies that love to hover around the TOP of the growth charts, my back is KILLING me. The idea of just laying there while someone works all that tension out sounds HEAVENLY.

After I highlighted the crap out of the massage section, my gaze turned to the waxing section. At the bottom of the section it says "Body hair should have a minimum two-weeks growth prior to scheduling an appointment." This is were I came to the realization that I just don't have enough ME Time. I didn't even have to THINK about this. I KNEW I had more then 2 weeks growth. What I had a harder time figuring out was when the last time I took a shower without small person joining me or pounding at the door, yelling "Mumma! You take a shower? I take a shower too?!" It's virtually impossible to shave your legs in either of those situations.

Tonight, I had the opportunity to partake in the ever elusive Bubble Bath. The kids were both asleep, Hubs was home relatively early, the kitchen was somewhat clean and dinner was on Warm in the CrockPot. I went in to start the bath and went looking for some relaxing bubble bath to make the most of this rare occasion.

I looked in the closet....and looked in the cabinet.....and went back to the closet.
This really couldn't be the only thing I had for bubble bath solution. Seriously?
In my hand, I held the green bottle of Sesame Street Watermelon scented bubbles that Craz-E uses when we let him turn the bathroom into a swimming pool.

I remember when before I was Mummy, I had bath salts, bath beads, sweet scented oils and soaps that were designed just for relaxing baths in dim lights; pumice scrubs for home pedicures that would leave your feet soft and tingly. You would leave the bathroom and feel like a new woman!

Now, I get 20-30 minutes every 6 months and leave the bathroom smelling like a sticky picnic fruit.

After that realization, I'm even more excited about my Spa Day then I was before. I'm just hoping it's not going to take another 6 months before I can actually do it!

First Semester Grades

I have successfully completed my first semester back to school after almost 10 years away from the classroom. The semester was full of challenges and hard work but it's done.

My "fluff" class was so easy, the professor actually asked me at one point "why are you here?" The only reason I took the class was to qualify for financial aid. I needed to be taking 6 credit hours to receive any financial aid. So I started looking through the classes I had left to finish my degree and found that they all were being held at the same time on the same day. And since I have yet to find a way to be in 2 places at the same time (something that would be increadably helpful in my everyday life, what with Laundry, Nursing, Cleaning, Cooking, Nursing, Cleaning all demanding my attention simultaniously) I found it necessary to enroll in a class that was easy and wouldn't screw up my GPA. I found "Exploring The Internet" and said BINGO!

The class was a Continuing Education course. The professor literally walked us through every lab and homework assignment during class. The sylabus had WAY more material listed then we actually got to. Had we gotten much further through the material, I probably would have found it a bit more challenging. But we seriously never got any more difficult then creating a very basic TicTacToe board. We had to keep a running compaliation of our work. I'd link to my site but we were required to list our real information on several pages, including our actual resume with address. So, in the interest of staying semi-anonomous, I'll just say it was all very very simple.

If you didn't get an A in the class, there was something seriously wrong. Granted, there were several students in the class who seemed COMPLETELY lost even with the hand-holding.

I walked away with a 99.9% (because I missed one class due to a sick kid or something) translating to an A.

Then there was my real course. Business Communications. I was prepared for something about how to write reports, memos, etc. What it really intailed was giving speeches and working in a team to develop a research presentation. Can I just say I HATE public speaking. Add on top of that, I was the second oldest student in the class. Most of our speeches were "pick your topic" type. Of course, since my life revolves around my family and primarily my babies, my speeches were rather odd to the rest of the class. Carseat Safety and Cloth Diapers vs Disposables. At least I knew what I was trying to talk about even if I was stumbling on every other word.

Unfortunately, the grading for this class was completely subjective. There is no "Right" or "Wrong" when it's a speech. The professor judged your speaking abilities and graded you on various aspects. It was nearly impossible to get a grade above a B.

The Team Presentation was frustrating. We were broken into teams and given the assignment on the first night of class. We were suppose to be working on the assignment thru the entire semester. My team never met as an entire team, the Team Leader picked the topic and assigned our parts 5 DAYS before it was due! Luckily, we managed to pull it off and got an 88% on our final presentation.

I managed to pull a B+ from that class.

So all in all, the semester was a success. Now I'm on winter break and I'm really looking forward to next semester.

I'm actually kind of sad that I only have 2 more semesters to complete. I'm starting to think I might start working on something else when I'm finished with my Business degree. Maybe becoming a Doula?

BabyWearing

I love wearing my baby. It's so snuggly! And with the right carrier, it makes it so much easier to hold her for extended amounts of time. I generally carry PrincesS on my hip all day cause it's easiest. But it throws my hip and back out of alignment. Not to mention how exhausting it is after about 10 minutes. Even in the cradle hold, a 14 pound baby gets REALLY heavy REALLY fast. This holiday season, we were at a bunch of family parties so I was holding her A LOT. I found the Sling Hold with the Moby Wrap last week and OMG it made standing around chatting at the parties so much easier!

So, babywearing is da bomb baby! But it really needs to be said that the right carrier makes all the difference.

The carrier needs to hold your baby in a safe position. We all know about the recall of the bag slings last year. They put baby in a bad position and ended up making it so they couldn't breath. Yes, that's VERY bad. Check out this PDF I found that explains proper positioning for babies until they have good head control (about 4months).

But just because a carrier isn't going to kill your baby doesn't mean it's not a bad way to carry them. The Baby Bjorn carrier, for example, puts baby in the optimum head-up, tummy-to-tummy position. But it doesn't hold baby in a seated position. Baby is dangling by a strap of fabric across the crotch. For baby boys, this means that their entire weights is being suspended by thier testicals. Talk about OWCH! Proper positioning of baby's legs should be in the frog-position - legs spread across your belly with knees above the level of tush. Baby should be SITTING on a fabric "shelf".

Every adult and every baby is different. This means a carrier that works perfectly for one momma might not fit right for the next. And just because another baby will sleep for hours in one style doesn't mean that your baby will. Finding the right carrier for you and your baby is a matter of trial and error. If you try one and it doesn't work, don't give up on BabyWearing all together. Try a different style/type. You can usually find a shop that sells the various different carriers that will let you try it on before you buy it.