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I was too quick to discount my husband’s amazing garden efforts in discussing our failed garden here {Recap on Garden: Don’t Use Seeds}. Here at the end of October, the carrots and parsnips came out of the ground. Mostly because SuperBoy has been wildly couped up indoors and I needed a specific task for him to help me with. So we unearthed what I thought would be remarkably puny carrots and parsnips. O contraire mon frere. Only one beet made it out alive. I think the nasty squirrels went for those stalks hardcore. AA hates our squirrels. A lot. The carrots were so sweet and crunchy! Guess who dipped them in applesauce and humus for lunch? Oh, Mr. SuperBoy. SuperBoy declared victory over the garden. And a great chance to get lots of dirt everywhere. Including in my hair. Woot!
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We love breakfast food. Carrot Cake Waffles by Willow Bird Baking, Dutch Pancakes–the family recipe, and Whole Wheat Banana Pancakes by Alice Waters. Alice Waters. I love her recipes. And next time I’m in San Fran, I mean to go to Chez Panisse, her culinary baby. This is a variation on her Pancake recipe in the Art of Simple Food. What? You don’t own it? Go immediately to a store, or the interweb, and acquire this. It will change your world. Her recipe for Buttermilk Pancakes with my twist: 3/4 cup whole-wheat flour 3/4 cup unbleached white flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon salt In a separate bowl mix: 2 egg yolks (You gotsta separate them, and get them as separate as possible. I use the egg shell as my dividing helper.) In a large measuring cup, measure: 1 3/4 cups buttermilk (If you don’t have any, see this list of substitutes for buttermilk, here.) Whisk the egg yolks with milk. Make a well in the dry ingredients, pour in the buttermilk mixture, and stir until just mixed. Add: 6 tablespoons butter, melted Stir well. In another bowl, beat egg whites until they form soft peaks, then fold them into the batter. If the batter is too thick, add more buttermilk. Add a few bananas sliced up into the batter. Spoon the batter onto a preheated griddle, cooking a single pancake first to see if the griddle is the right temperature. Cook until the underside of…
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My little six month old is teething. Yup, it’s here. The snarfling nights. The little razors under her gum line. The shrill shrieks. A good girlfriend’s little son about the same age is going through this too. He was a great sleeper, but it sounds like his sleep is disrupted now. SweetPea is not a great sleeper, let’s be honest, so there’s no real change in our disrupted nights. Is your little one teething? I’ve written about teething here {Teething Pain in Young Children}, here {Toddler Night Sleep Trouble}, and here {Teething Gel: To Gel or Not to Gel}. What are the best teething toys, how do you even know it’s the teeth, and what the heck will make your baby happy again? 1) Teethers. Your breast. (Whoa! What about the don’t-be-a-human-pacifier rebuke you get from lots of fellow mamas? I disregard it.) Nurse and offer nursing as much as you are willing and able to. Baby will appreciate it, and it will keep your milk supply up, especially if you’re starting solids around now. Other favs around here: rubber, latex, wooden, fabric. Avoid BPA plastics. Defined here by Wiki. Why avoid it? Because they can leach out chemicals into your baby’s mouth. Yeech! I also try to avoid made-in-china. Why? Because I want to support made in the USA. Consider it my local solution to our economic woes. Except for Sophie, the French giraffe. I love her and almost all things French. SweetPea likes different things at different times. I do not put…
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Emily Rumsey Photography Do you live in Minneapolis/Saint Paul or thereabouts? Are you expecting your first baby? What are the first steps toward learning more about your options for childbirth here in the Metro? I got news for you: long gone are the days of just showing up at the hospital, push, push, and then having a cigar (probably not you, probably your partner). Now you’ve got childbirth classes, doulas, birth plans, midwives, OB/GYNs, water births, land births, drugs, no drugs, and different kinds of drugs. It’s an avalanche of info. And I’m not even talking about all the unsolicited input from well-intentioned friends and relatives. 1) Childbirth education classes. Why do you need a class to tell you what’s totally natural and biologically normal? Just because our bodies know what to do doesn’t mean our heads do. Trust me, a lot of it is not intuitive. The Twin Cities boasts a number of great childbirth education centers and classes. Begin with a free meeting offered by the Childbirth Collective, a non-profit run by birth professionals that’s a fabulous resource for families. See here for the schedule of parent topic nights. I’ve done reviews & introductions of two of our newest childbirth ed places: BabyLove in Eagan {BabyLove: A New Place for Childbirth Education in the Metro}, Enlightened Mama in Saint Paul {Newest Childbirth Education Center in the Metro: Enlightened Mama}, Flutterby Birth Services on the West Side of town {Flutterby Birth Services: My Chat with Owner & Founder}, numomma in downtown Saint Paul {numomma: the…
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SuperBoy playing farmer-in-the-dell. It was another magical weekend around here. The Twin Cities Birth & Baby Expo was great fun and my little craft table had lots of visits and sales. I’m going retail with my Bandit Bibs and Contour Cloths so look for more on that later. He also started teaching his little friends how to properly burp a baby (doll). “Burp, pat, pat, pat her on the back like THIS <smack the doll> keep going!” His little sweet gal pal V was over on Friday night for homemade pizza {Friday Night Pizzas!}. She brought her parents along for good measure. It was so fun! Especially to watch the two kiddos play. He also taught her baseball with a hockey stick. No surprise. Did I ever tell you that when my brother got married, SuperBoy was the ringbearer and best friends with our sister-in-law’s littlest brother who’s about 18 months old? SuperBoy gave D his favorite baseball card: Justin Morneau. D ate it. In front of SuperBoy. SuperBoy almost died. Total sidenote, there. It’s a Monday, and that’s all I got, folks.
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For the mothers who stay home, or who work at home, newsflash: you gotta take care of yourself. Of course, everyone says that. But when you realize you haven’t really gotten dressed in a while (sweats & yoga pants & your husband’s bathrobe doesn’t count) or done your hair (blow dry?) or thought about facial lotion, yes, it’s time to do a little self-care. Some crazies who aren’t parents envision parents who are at home during the day to be living the high life, replete with bon bons and being on the couch. Parents who work know how hard it is to be home, and parents who stay home know how hard it is to work. No parenting war here! I stay home, work at home, live at home, and don’t miss my out-of-the-house job life. I don’t miss looking presentable every day. I don’t miss being up & out the door every morning by 7am. I don’t miss having to shower regularly. (Hey, before you judge, you try living in a very old cold house in a very cold state. Yup, it’s cold already and I hate showering in the cold. It’s the getting out part.) But staying home means I take night shifts, and SweetPea doesn’t sleep through, and SuperBoy is still adjusting to moving to his big boy bed (post soon!) and my days filled with marathon style tantrums, fussiness that requires all-day-sling-wearing, books, songs, drawings, make believe, snuggling for naps, making dinner together, and sewing, blogging,…
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