Cereal that she'll eat!

I heart the Parent Hacks website. Yesterday I found the following:

... a brilliant way to turn fortified baby cereal into portable snack food: My
9-month-old has zero interest in spoon feeding, ... except that he needs that
iron-fortified baby cereal... Finally I realized that if you add enough cereal,
the puree becomes a stiff dough, which you can then roll into little balls and
toss onto the high chair tray.... use regular food like refried beans, canned
pureed sweet potato, tahini, pureed simmered dried apricots, cottage cheese, and
so on for the "base." Sometimes I mix in grated cheese or wheat germ or whatever
else I think of. I make a big batch of little balls all at once, freeze them on
a plate, and then transfer them to a Ziploc bag for freezer storage; before
mealtime I pull a handful out to defrost...

http://www.parenthacks.com/2008/05/baby-cereal-bal.html

Sweetpea only ate cereal for the first two weeks, then she went on strike. She hasn't willingly touched the stuff since. Today, she ate 1/2 cup of cereal this way.

Peanut Butter! Mmmmmmm...

Just PB, no PBJ for me. Oh, but I've missed my peanut butter, my yummy friend. Because Husband has allergies, we've been very careful with peanuts, so that meant no peanut butter for me until Sweetpea's food no longer came from me. It's been 10 months and 3 weeks, and yes, I've been keeping track. I had to resist my absolutely favourite, Reese's Pieces Peanut Butter Cups at Hallowe'en (who was the mean person who bought that candy pack? Oops, it was me in a fit of momnesia). To add salt to the wound, I had to banish the leftovers to Husband's office lest I should devour them after a 3 a.m. feed. Then, Reeses Pieces PB Bells showed up in my stocking at Christmas, and I had to trade them for plain M&Ms. Clearly not a fair trade for me. Sorry Santa, I DO love them, but I love Sweetpea more.

As of today, peanut butter and I have reconciled. In fact, I think I get extra for good behaviour. Then again, better tell the neighbourhood kids not to hit our house this Hallowe'en. There won't be any good stuff left.

Our Return to Adult Outdoor Sports!

Sweetpea has been keeping us busy with many toddler sports, including (but not limited to) Push-My-Swing, Crawl-a-Thon, The 2-Mile-Hunchback-Walk-with-Me, and my personal favourite, Bet-You-Can't-Get-Me-Before-I-Eat-This-Random-Thing.

This long weekend started with two glorious days. And Husband and I got two pretty good golf games in, my first in almost two years. Four hours of adult conversation AND adult outdoor sports? Hoorah!

Shoe Envy

Sweetpea may be only 10.5 months, but I already have a case of serious shoe envy.


Her shoes are just so darn cute!!! She started off with a pair of classic Robeez, and I'll be putting these into a shadow box on the wall. Finding this image online, I've learned that the pattern is apparently a hibiscus; all this time I thought it was a stylized butterfly. Hee!
But they were adorably pink, which just didn't say Christmas enough. So then we got faux Mary Janes (and then she went barefoot in her Christmas photo.)


The wriggle war on socks began shortly thereafter, so the Robeez booties were clearly necessary. I can't rave enough about these booties, they stayed on, and they were snug and warm.

She wore the 0-6 month size until two weeks ago; but since she's started to wear the next size, more shoes were necessary. What better way to proclaim her Frenchness than with some Tour Eiffel Robeez!

And now that she's walking (by holding my fingertips, ouch!) , some sturdier options for the park: sweet little pink Pedipeds.
Hmm. Why does she have more shoes than me already??

SPF Baby

Yay! The summer weather is finally upon us. Not so yay! Sweetpea has to start wearing sunscreen.

First to admit my bias: I hate the stuff, and almost never wear it. It makes me feel greasy and I don't like the smell. If I'll be outside for more than 30 minutes, I might put some on my face and my shoulders, the top of my feet. I am not so fair-skinned, and I don't have a history of getting sunburnt. As I've gotten older, I don't bake in the sun anymore, but love to read in a hammock in the shade. So, that's me.

But my darling Sweetpea has beautiful baby skin. Which I know I should protect. So I dutifully went and bought Aveeno's SPF 55 for babies. And on our recent sun holiday, I put it on carefully, along with her SPF 45 swimsuit and legionnaire-style hat.

But I dread smearing the stuff on her all summer. It's pasty and I'm always terrified that I've missed a spot. Or that she'll eat/lick it off her arm.

Readers, how do you cope with the sun and protecting baby's skin? Any ideas to make it easier?

Neighbor Wars

Okay, I LOVE my neighbors to the east. They are kind, they watch over the house, it's a great relationship. My neighbors to the west are also great.

My daily prayer is that the neighbors across the lane to the north will MOVE FAR FAR AWAY. and SOON!!! I have no idea what their names really are; I'm naming the husband "Wilmer" and the wife "Gertrude" because I don't like those names. So there.

Not long after we moved into our home, it started with me having to ask Wilmer to not use our driveway (off the lane - sadly we have no backyard, it is all asphalt) as part of the alley, and not to back ALL the way into it all the time. At the time in question, I came home unexpectedly, and Wilmer was PARKED in our driveway, reading a book in his running SUV. Wilmer totally went off on me, swearing up and down, that he didn't see what the F-problem was and that it was F-ridiculous, and to call the cops next time.

I was blown away by his reaction; I thought he'd apologize and that would be that. I actually had to point out to him that it was our property (by his reaction, you'd think he had rights to it!!??) and it's not my fault his garage is too close to the lane.

So after that nasty scene, whenever they'd leave their garage and I'd happen to be at the back of the house, I'd watch. Often they still backed into our yard. Fast forward a few months, and Gertrude screams at my husband something about how she hopes I'm happy (while having trouble navigating her double-wide garage from the lane.)

By now nearly two years have gone by. This morning I was opening Sweetpea's curtains, and they are pulling out, both Wilmer and Gertrude in the car (the SUV has now disappeared, so it's only one car in the garage.) I paused to watch, and Gertrude sees me, and I'm pretty sure she made devil horns with her fingers at me.

At first, I was angry. However, how pathetic is it for an adult to make devil horns at her neighbour over the use of her neighbours OWN PROPERTY?!!

We are having a fence installed in two weeks.

Rant over!

Desperately Seeking Adult Conversation! or, Mondays suck

We had a fabulous weekend, and a fabulous Mother's Day. We went to the park, Sweetpea enjoyed going on the swing and playing in the gravel and the baby slide, our dog behaved well off-leash, and I blew thousands of bubbles across the playground (Sweetpea hasn't noticed the bubbles yet.)

So how I feel today has nothing to do with a fabulous weekend. I feel blah. I have always hated Mondays; but now they seem even worse. Hubby goes back to work, and I'm home with Sweetpea and the dog, and feel.... like we need to escape. We need to Do Something. By Tuesday, I'm rolling along with my schedule again...but Mondays are hard. I think I'm craving adult conversation. I used to go to this mom & baby trainer-led gym class on Monday mornings, but Sweetpea's naps have moved and now cancel that opportunity. Today, going back to work doesn't seem so bad. But I know I'll feel differently tomorrow.

It's only 6 hours till Hubby comes home. Yay!

Counting Down creates Insomnia!

Where we live, it's now standard to take a 12-month maternity leave. Sweetpea is currently 10 months old, and I've got two months left. Everytime I think about the amount of time remaining, my stomach seizes, and I start my mantra: Got To Make the Most of Every Minute. A few days ago, it one of my best Clutz moves, I managed to stub my toe so badly I had to go to the ER to have it x-rayed. While we were there, I mentally calculated that if it took six weeks to heal, I would only have two weeks left after for our daily walks. (Luckily, it's not broken, so I should stop hobbling within a few days.)

But the sheer devastation I felt about possibly "losing" those weeks still surprised me. I've been dreading the RTW (return to work) for awhile now - how do you entrust your joyful toddler to someone else? Even someone more qualified than me? (Our newly-hired nanny for my RTW has her ECE.)

However, when I think about my career- I worked hard to get here. I also don't want to leave my occupation for too long: if I don't work enough, I have to re-license myself. And that is a Big Deal. So, in the spirit of balance, I asked my employer for a four-day workweek upon my RTW. They would not commit, and last week denied my request, despite many others having part time employment. To be fair, my employer gave me generous maternity benefits given my industry, and didn't question my taking the full year (others have taken significantly less; one person is rumoured to have taken a two week mat leave!!!)

This has really left me mentally meandering. If they won't give me what I feel works best for me, then I really need to consider other options. We want Sweetpea to have a sibling, so that is a factor - which raises its own questions: what is the best age gap? how realistic is it to try to hit the "sweetspot" to have a sibling? is it fair to move to another employer when I know that I'm going to try to have another child?

Then again, is it fair to me to wait? I didn't love what I was doing before I left, but it wouldn't be so bad to spend another year doing it. Changing to another sub-area in my field would be more interesting for me, but would require changing employers. Sigh.

I'd love to hear how other people resolved this sort of situation.

Stand up and be heard! Even better if it's the middle of the night!

Stand up, baby, stand up..... give me your love, gimmegimme....

I seem to remember lyrics somewhat similar to this in some song from the late 80s/early 90s. The one that makes me think of Club Med vacations. Oooh, vacation. Right. Back to reality.

Unfortunately, Sweetpea seems to know these lyrics too. She keeps waking up, pulling herself to her feet, and hollering for us. While I appreciate the power of "I want you," and realize this won't last forever, can it at least wait for the morning? Preferably after 7 a.m.? [I nearly wrote keep dreaming - ha.]

The real question is, what to do? Do we go in and comfort her, and try to get her to lie down (she's back on her feet before we turn away from the crib) or do we let her figure it out for herself? And why does this keep happening 45 minutes after she goes to sleep for the night? And again an hour and a half later?

DH spent a week trying to rock her to sleep and making that ultra-precarious 5 foot journey from the glider to the crib, often having to restart if she startled awake. Last night we tried to Ferber again (having successfully done so at 7mo). It's much harder when they can stand up, and really really holler. After an hour, she finally went to sleep. On her own.