***

Last weekend we went to a friend’s with a few other moms and toddlers in the area and made some crafts and had snacks. The kids were pretty interested in the first craft (styrofoam ball spiders), pretty into the next one (paper birds), and then the balloons came out for the third one and we lost them altogether. Us moms had a lot of fun making balloon ghosts while the kids went wild with the balloons though. I think next time we’ll stick to one craft at a time. I don’t have pictures of the spider because it got pulled apart as soon as we got it home. I ended up doing most of the work for that one anyway. She had fun with the bird, mostly loving using the glue stick, sticking stickers, and sprinkling glitter. I did most of the paper parts.

***

We took more belly pictures the other night, and Meredith came racing over to join in. When I pulled my shirt up, she pulled hers up too. Then yesterday I pulled out the camera to take some pictures and she ran in front of it and pulled her shirt up. Sorry it’s so blurry, I wasn’t expecting her to be there and she put it down again almost right away so this is the only one I got.

***

Meredith was very interested in a book I was reading and came over when I’d started a chapter and asked what the numbers were at the top. I pointed to them and named them as “8″ and “9″. She repeated them both back to me, and then was pointing to them on the page and naming them. Curious if she actually recognized them as different symbols or was just repeating them as I had, I turned to the previous chapter and asked if she knew those numbers. She promptly said “8″ and “8″ while pointing to each one. She then wanted to go through and point to other 8′s and 9′s in the book. I tried adding another number to the mix, but she was only interested in the 8′s and 9′s so I dropped that and we just looked for those ones. This was last week and this morning she came up to me with a calculator and pointed out the 8 and 9 to me, so she still remembers them.

***

She is loving drawing. Our families are both fairly artistic and creative in different ways. Kris’ grandmother was a painter and painted some beautiful artwork. Kris actually inherited an easel, some canvases, and a lot of paints and brushes from her. His mother and sister both knit and sew and do various other crafts. My mother quilts and sews, and also scrapbooks. Kris enjoys drawing, and I’m very musical and also love to scrapbook. Meredith loves to sit and draw right now and will do so for long periods at a time. The other day she drew something and told me it was an apple. She’s been drawing puppies, kitties, and ants, but those are all things that either we had drawn first, or she’d asked us to draw first, and then tried to copy us. The apple is the first time she’s drawn something without having seen one of us draw it first. She didn’t want to relinquish the drawing for me to scan and now I’m not sure what happened to it, but if I find it I will scan it and post it.

***

I went to the chiropractor finally yesterday and it helped immensely. Beforehand, it felt like there was something off in my back. It wasn’t just sore, it felt like a muscle was too short or out of place or something, and I could barely straighten all the way and had problems getting up from a sit or from lying down. Sleeping has been horrible as even shifting or rolling over has hurt. And unlike regular back soreness, it hasn’t been getting better at all. If anything, it was worse some days.

On the table at the chiropractor office, she had my lying down and asked me to sit up, and I had to get her to help me and it was pretty excruciating. She then did the adjustment, and I sat up without thinking about it and realized it had barely hurt. Now my back is still a bit stiff and sore, but it doesn’t feel wrong anymore. It’s hard to explain, but now it just feels like normal back soreness, not the weird feeling off something being actually out of place. I have another appointment next week, though she said if it starts to be the really funny soreness again, or is getting really bad, she can fit me in earlier. I think it will actually start to get better now though.

Related posts:

1. Baby Scrapbook
2. Winter Project: Snow Globes
3. September Favourites

I did a bunch of organizing, decluttering, and moving  of stuff last week and felt fine afterwards. Then suddenly the next afternoon my back started hurting, and it still hasn’t gotten any better. I’m not sure what I would have done, as I was careful about what I moved and how I picked things up and have never had problems with my back like this before. I don’t think it’s pregnancy-related at all yet, but being pregnant probably doesn’t help. I have a chiro appointment set for tomorrow and I can’t wait. I’ve been trying to take it really easy but if anything my back is worse today than it was yesterday. Maybe because yesterday it was feeling a lot better so I probably didn’t take it as easy as I had been. I’m really hoping the chiro helps. It usually does. I can barely walk today without pain, whereas up until now it’s mostly been just bending over and getting up from a sit or from lying down that’s been painful.

The worst part is, because I had started the decluttering, the rooms I was working in had boxes and stuff pulled out. But I haven’t had a chance to go back and finish, so some of them look worse than before. Oh well, hopefully the chiro will help and I’ll be able to finish up sooner rather than later, though I’ll take it even easier just in case. My dishes have been piling up too, even though I’m trying to get at least a load a day done. Anyone want to come do my dishes?

Here are some belly shots from last night. Excuse the funny cropping on some of them, Meredith wasn’t wearing pants as usual and I don’t want to post nude shots on the internet or on Facebook.

Notice my belly button sticking out already? lol It didn’t do that until much closer to the end last time.

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2. Update: Good-bye First Trimester
3. It's true

This time, I came across a site for homemade deodorant. I was pretty skeptical, though to be honest I’m not sure why I would be, since my homemade cleaners and bug sprays seem to work as well if not better than any chemicals from the store. But I was. However, after reading the reviews I decided to give it a try. The aluminum in most deodorants has been linked to Alzheimer’s, and since my grandmother has it, I’d like to do whatever I can to lessen the probability of me getting it too. If that means making my own deodorant, so be it. If it saves me money in the process (and it does, even using organic ingredients), even better. It took me all of five minutes to make, using ingredients I always have in the house anyway, so for me it was quicker than running out to the store too.

Natural Deodorant

• 5 TB coconut oil (I used extra-virgin, cold-pressed, organic)
• 1/4 cup baking soda
• 1/4 cup corn starch
• essential oil

Melt the coconut oil on low heat. Coconut oil has a very low melting point so it won’t take long. Remove from heat and add the baking soda and corn starch. Stir until smooth.

Add a few drops of essential oil depending on your preferences. I put five drops of tea tree oil for it’s antibacterial and antifungal properties, and orange because I love the smell. Next time, I might also add a couple of drops of lavender. Once it has cooled somewhat, give it another stir to prevent the oils from settling.

The only thing I forgot to do was figure out a container to put it in once it was done. All I had in the house were plastic, two-cup rubbermaid containers. It didn’t even fill one of those halfway. I like the idea of reusing an old deodorant container, except that coconut oil has such a low melting point that I would be worried about it leaking. It would have to be somewhere upright and it wouldn’t work for traveling. I think next time I will see if I can find some squat glass containers to use.

So far, it seems to work as well as any store-bought ones I have tried. The true test will be to see how it holds up over time though.

Related posts:

1. Homemade Beef Dip
2. There’s something in the air

I keep telling myself I want to start running again and get into shape like I used to be. I’ve never really had the motivation. Now that I have a dog who I can take out into public during daylight hours though, I feel like that could be motivation. I want to do agility with her too, and so we both need to be in pretty good shape for that. She came from a foster home with three other dogs, and her foster home in Arkansas had other dogs to play with too, so I want to make sure to keep up the activity and exercise now.

My biggest hesitation is that we are wanting to have another baby. When I ran a lot as a teen, I had very sporadic periods and had very low body fat. I’m not sure if that’s something I should worry about over ten years later when trying to get pregnant again? My cycles aren’t consistent even now though. Also, what if I got pregnant in week three or four or something. Is it okay to keep up a program like that while pregnant? I’m sure eventually as I got big and sore I would have to stop it, but I assume that as long as I’m comfortable and not pushing myself it would be okay to keep going, albeit maybe increasing the times at a slower pace. I was so tired and sick last time though, if it’s the same this time I might just lose all motivation to keep going anyway lol.

I sort of started this Monday night, though I keep forgetting to bring a stop watch with me and have just been counting slowly in my head. Two minutes is surprisingly not too bad at a time, though my legs feel a little bit jelly-like the rest of the evening. We have training classes on Wednesday nights, so my schedule will be modified. Maybe Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. I did some more tonight. We walk to a park in a big field every night with Meredith, so I’ve been doing laps around the field while Kris is on the park with Meredith.

Sorcha doesn’t really heel yet, but we have a regular training leash and a *gasp* flexi for her. I know flexis get a lot of bad rap, but I’ve pretty much only been using the flexi when Meredith isn’t nearby. We decided when she’s on a regular leash she needs to know not to pull and (eventually) to heel, but when she’s on the flexi she’ll get more freedom. So I’ve been putting her on the flexi while I’m running and letting her run around with it. She can only go as far as the end of the flexi so she still has to pay attention to me and which direction I’m going, so I think it will be good practice for agility when she will have to pay attention to me while still running some distance away.

Anyway, here’s the program as written from Runner’s World:

Your 10-Week Training Plan

The following running schedule was created by Budd Coates, Health Promotions Manager at Rodale Inc., who instructs a corporate beginning running program. Coates has taken nonrunners and, in 10 weeks, helped them reach their goal of running the 3.5-mile Chase Corporate Challenge.

Before you start with this schedule, get your legs ready with eight days of walking: walk for 20 minutes a day for the first four days, then increase to 30 minutes a day for four more days. Now you’re ready to begin with week 1.

Each week of the program, do your run/walk workouts on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and take Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday off.

10-WEEK TRAINING SCHEDULE

Week 1
Run 2 minutes,
walk 4 minutes.
Repeat 5 times.

Week 2
Run 3 minutes,
walk 3 minutes.
Repeat five times.

Week 3
Run 5 minutes,
walk 2.5 minutes.
Repeat four times.

Week 4
Run 7 minutes,
walk 3 minutes.
Repeat three times.

Week 5
Run 8 minutes,
walk 2 minutes.
Repeat three times.

Week 6
Run 9 minutes,
walk 2 minutes.
Repeat twice, then
run 8 minutes.

Week 7
Run 9 minutes,
walk 1 minute.
Repeat three times

Week 8
Run 13 minutes,
walk 2 minutes.
Repeat twice.

Week 9
Run 14 minutes,
walk 1 minute.
Repeat twice.

Week 10
Run 30 minutes.

Note: After completing week 9, if you feel tired, repeat this week of training before moving on to week 10.

Related posts:

1. Sleep Training Guide for the Infant
2. Catching Up
3. Potty Talk

First, Meredith is doing wonderfully. She seems to be going through a learning spurt right now. It seems that she says a new word we haven’t heard her say before every day. She has so many new abilities, she’s even counting a little bit and seems to recognize some letters and colours. Though we don’t drill her on any of these things, so I couldn’t say for sure. I think she is on the verge of potty training. If we leave her diaperless, she will often go and sit on the potty of her own accord to pee or poo. With diapers on, she still doesn’t signal before she goes, but we’re definitely getting there. She has started sitting her doll on the potty or toilet and making our “psss” sound for peeing though, and then pointing and clapping for the doll. It’s really cute.

She finally got her eighth front tooth last week, and I think she may still be teething this week. She’s nursing pretty much constantly. It’s actually really starting to wear on me. She was up every hour or two through the last couple of nights nursing (prior to that she slept 6-8 hours in a row most nights) and it seems during the day I can’t sit down to relax without her wanting to come join me and nurse. Don’t get me wrong, I love our nursing relationship, but it is hard some days. And while most days if I don’t feel like nursing at the time she asks she is okay accepting food or a drink or play and cuddling as a substitute, these last couple of days she hasn’t been at all. I remind myself that there is a reason, whether I’m aware of that reason or not, and that the times she needs it most are not the times to refuse her. We’d been discussing how she’d gotten tall and thin, so it’s possible that it’s because she is growing out now, or maybe it’s just all the learning she’s been doing recently.

We went to Calgary for a visit with family a few weeks ago, and it went really well. My parents have been separated since the beginning of April, and it was obviously a good thing that should have happened years ago. They are both so much happier and more pleasant to be around. The trip was a bit of a whirlwind, trying to fit in so many people in just 7 days. We drove both ways, though I think until Meredith (and any other children we have in the future) are a bit older, we may fly from now on. The ride wasn’t actually that bad either way, but twelve hours stuck in a car, even with breaks, is a lot to ask of anyone, let alone a two year old. We did do most of the driving at night, but even still.

Now, we are currently dogless. We left Tipsy in Calgary with my mom. Part of me is sad and I miss her, but I have to be honest and say that mostly I feel relieved that she’s in a home where she seems much much happier, and is doing so much better. I volunteered at the SPCA for seven years in my teens and used to scorn anyone who would rehome a dog, so I never thought I would do it. I don’t think I would still ever dump an animal at the SPCA where I don’t know what would happen to it or where it would go though. Reactions when I tell people range from “It’s about time, that dog was neurotic”, to “I wondered when you were going to find her a new home”, to “When are you getting another one?”. lol, unfortunately for her, it doesn’t seem she was well thought of around here, which is too bad because she is a very sweet, friendly little dog when she’s comfortable and happy. Anyone who knows her really well actually really loves her. But she also had neurological problems and fear aggression, and because of the two combined wasn’t very trainable in some ways. We got her from a breeder who was ill, and she was the only puppy in her litter, and so for the first 6 months of her life she grew up completely unsocialized.

We didn’t walk Tipsy except at night because she was aggressive and stressed with other dogs or people around. We are the type of dog owners who want to be able to give a dog an inch and not worry about it. We want to be able to let a dog run ahead on the leash and sniff sometimes, come up on the furniture, go first out the door, sleep in our bed, get free love, etc. We are the type of owners who have a dog to be his companion and friend, not his master. Tipsy was the type of dog who if you gave her an inch, she’d take a mile, and then try and take more. We had to make sure she knew we were dominant, or she would get stressed and nervous. When new people visited, she often had to be locked in her kennel or she’d be a nervous wreck. There’s so much more I could say about her, but I don’t want to go into all the reasons we had for giving her to my mom, suffice it to say that she is doing wonderfully there, in a quieter home with a very friendly, submissive dog, and it really makes any guilt and heartache we had over the decision dissipate. My mom had a dog pass away two summers ago, and her current dog has been in mourning ever since. He loves having another dog around too and Tipsy is learning about doggy communication from him, so it’s a good partnership.

All that being said, we (and by that, I mean mostly me, though Meredith has gone looking for her a few times) really miss having a dog around. But I’m being picky about any new dog we get. He/she has to be friendly, good with kids, confident, trainable, friendly… Because I stay at home, I have lots of time to spend with a dog, but I want to spend that time having fun and going for walks, not constantly correcting behaviours or trying to change bad habits. We weren’t really in a rush, but I put out a few feelers to some local rescue groups, and as it turns out we may end up adopting one sooner rather than later.

Kris got his tonsils out last week. He’s been in a lot of pain this week. He had obstructive sleep apnea, and neither of us were getting much sleep because of it. It caused other problems too, like he has always had problems breathing through his nose. He went to an ENT who recommended a tonsillectomy. He got a second opinion from our GP, who is very holistic, and a naturopath. Both gave some suggestions on things to try, but after looking at his throat said his tonsils were some of the biggest they’d ever seen. (He also had a hygienist say the same thing to him without being asked.) He went on an elimination diet for 13 weeks, which did seem to be helping a little. He was snoring less at least, but he still wasn’t getting a good night’s sleep or breathing easier, so when we got a call that the surgery had been scheduled he decided to go ahead with it. It’s too early to tell if it fixed the sleep apnea, but we’re hopeful. He’s been drinking a lot of green smoothies and other cold, soft foods.

This weekend we’re heading out again, this time just for a short plane ride to Kelowna though, for Kris’ grandmother’s funeral. She was 95 and had lived a good life, so I think it will be more a celebration of her life than a mourning of her passing. Hopefully, Kris will be feeling well enough by then to go.

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1. Sleeping Baby
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3. 18 Months!

I’ve had to be a bit creative lately, as Kris is doing an elimination diet in an effort to find out what is causing his eczema and very enlarged tonsils (which are believed to be the cause of his obstructive sleep apnea). The foods he is eliminating right now are beef, eggs, dairy, wheat/gluten, and kidney beans. He is on week seven, and his eczema looks so much better. He hasn’t had to put cortisone cream on it since the first week and though it hasn’t gone away completely, it looks the best I can remember it looking in a long time. He wants to give it another week or two before starting so slowly add some of the potential foods back in, starting with beef. (He’s pretty tired of chicken, turkey, and ham by now!)

Annie often shares her weekly meal plan as well as many of her favorite recipes, and I love the idea. We’ve been bad about making meal plans every week but it’s something I’d like to start again. It saves time and money, and means we’re not stuck at 5:30 at night wondering what we want to eat that night. (Especially since take out isn’t an option because of the elimination diet!)

Tomorrow I’ll post recipes and hopefully pictures of what we had for supper tonight: Butternut squash with apples and maple syrup, and Grilled lime salmon with avocado sauce. Both were delicious and definitely will be made again. I forgot to take pictures tonight, so will take pictures of the leftovers tomorrow if I remember and can make them look appetizing. That’s why I say hopefully there will be pictures.

Related posts:

1. Meal Plan
2. Meal Plan
3. Pantry Challenge

1) Name two motivations for being green?

I have always loved Canada and the fact that there is forest, mountains, ocean, etc. all around us. I want my children to grow up to appreciate nature as much as I do and I want it to be there for them to appreciate. So many people don’t realize what an impact we have on everything around us.

Also, I enjoy living simpler and trying to live in harmony with everything around us. It’s cheaper, often easier, cleaner, healthier… It just makes more sense to me!

2) Name 2 eco-UNfriendly items you refuse to give up?

My dryer. I’ve lived without one and it wasn’t the end of the world, but since I have one, I won’t not use it.

Our computers. We have three of them, one of which is never off (it’s our server) and the other two are on a lot during the day.

3) Are you at peace with or do you feel guilty about number 2?

I’m at peace with it. I have experimented with our dryer settings and we dry most things at low heat for a short amount of time. Diapers are often still a bit damp at the end and I hang them to dry them the rest of the way. Most of my clothes I hang to dry anyway because it’s better for the clothes. So it’s not like I’m setting everything on hot for the maximum length of time. One day maybe I’ll have an outside line, but right now I just don’t see that being realistic for us.

As for the computers, we actually tried to sell one of them and were going to live with just 2 (the server and one other), but it didn’t sell and I’m kind of glad. Sometimes when Meredith is sleeping/napping we each will go on one and it’s nice to have that option. I’d love to get a laptop instead of my desktop. We’ve been talking about getting rid of our server and hosting our websites on another server though.

4) What are you willing to change but feel unable to/stuck with/unsure how to go about it?

I would love to start gardening more and growing our own produce. I am not a gardener though and my yard is tiny (I want there to be some left for Meredith to play in!). I feel like I don’t have the knowledge, skill, or time to actually make that happen.

5) Do you know your carbon footprint for your home? If so, is it larger/smaller than your national average?

I’m not sure offhand, but I know it’s a lot smaller than the national average, especially since we just got rid of our car and don’t plan to buy another for at least a few months, if not longer. We turn off lights when we’re not in a room and turn off power bars on things that we’re not using.

6) What’s eco-frustrating and/or eco-fantastic about where you live?

Fantastic:

I can think of a few things. We’re near a grocery store so can walk for groceries. The bus system is decent. This city has a great soft plastic recycling program. We live on a green belt and have tons of pathways and forested area to walk along. And the car co-op is way up there too of course.

Frustrating:

Our windows suck and I’m sure it means the heat is on a lot more than it really needs to be, even though we actually keep our place fairly cool and wear layers. I have the same beef about sidewalks as Annie does: there really aren’t enough of them here and it makes some places hard to walk to safely, especially with children.

7) Do you eat local/organic/vegetarian/forage/grow your own?

I would love to grow my own, but it hasn’t happened yet. We do try and eat local and organic as much as possible, and eat seasonally as well. One bad thing about not having a car is it’s going to be a lot harder to get to the local food co-ops and farmer’s markets.

What do you personally find the most challenging in being green?

Um, the rest of the world? It’s hard sometimes to be green when companies are packaging everything in plastic, greener options are often more expensive (especially if you don’t know about things like how easy it is to make your own cleaners), and there’s still not a lot of support or understanding in a lot of the general population. The world is getting better, but being green is almost becoming a fad now, which has good and bad points. Companies are trying to profit off of it and I think people don’t realize that many things that seem like good, green ideas actually aren’t so much when you take into account things like production or shipping.

9) Do you have a green confession?

While I do believe humans have an impact on the environment and the world around us, I don’t really believe in anthropogenic global warming as such and I think Al Gore is a hypocrit and definitely someone who has cashed in on the green fad.

10) Do you have the support of family and/or friends?

I think so. Some of my family thinks we’re odd/strange for some of the things we do (like making our own cleaners), but none of them try and change our minds or anything. Most of my friends have very similar values to us about things like that too, so they are supportive.

The Guidelines:

1. Link to Green Meme Bloggers

2.Link to whoever tagged you

3.Include meme number

4.Include these guidelines in your post

5.Answer questions (erm – that bit’s quite important)

6.Tag 3 other green bloggers.

I tag:

Alice

Sarah

Amanda (whose blog I just started reading but am enjoying it so far!)

Related posts:

1. Green Meme #2
2. Moving
3. Getting into shape

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – The exercise that babies get while suckling at the breast may be an essential component of the respiratory benefits associated with breastfeeding, new research shows.

Dr. Ikechukwu U. Ogbuano of the University of South Carolina in Columbia and colleagues found that by 10 years old children who were breastfed for 4 months or longer had larger lung capacities than their counterparts who had been nursed for a shorter amount of time or not at all. The breastfed children were also able to expel air from their lungs more quickly.

While the children’s speedier exhalations could have been related to the beneficial components of breast milk, “the lung capacity cannot be really explained by the immune factors in the breast milk,” Ogbuano told Reuters Health. Instead, Ogbuano and his colleagues argue, the harder work required of babies who drink from the breast rather than a bottle is a more likely explanation.

Breastfeeding is known to help protect babies from developing respiratory infections, but studies of whether it may reduce their risk of asthma risk later in life have had mixed results, the researchers write in the journal Thorax. To investigate, they looked at lung function in 1,033 children who were 10 years old, born on the Isle of Wight, and were followed since birth.

The average lung capacity, as measured by the volume of air a child could exhale forcibly, was 54 milliliters greater in those who were breastfed for at least 4 months than in those who were not been breastfed at all. Peak expiratory flow, or the maximum speed at which the air can blown out of the lungs, was 180.8 milliliters per second faster in these children.

The lung function in children who had been breastfed for a shorter amount of time wasn’t significantly different from the lung function of children who weren’t breastfed at all.

Ogbuano and his team note that the pressure nursing babies exert on the breast before milk begins to flow is triple that required when drinking from a bottle; nursing sessions also last 8 minutes, on average, compared with 4.4 minutes for bottle feeding. Nursing four to eight times a day “may also help to prepare these children for a lifetime of physical fitness,” Ogbuano said in an interview.

The findings suggest that babies who are bottle-fed with pumped breast milk may be missing out, Dr. Wilfried Karmaus, another researcher on the study, told Reuters Health. “We may go just in the wrong direction with the pumping and bottle feeding. That’s why it’s so important to really clearly consider what’s going on there.”

Karmaus noted that in Canada and Europe, generous maternity leave policies make it possible for women to directly breastfeed their infants for several months if they choose, while in the U.S. many women must return to work after only a few weeks. Giving U.S. women longer maternity leave might pay for itself in terms of health benefits, such as reductions in obesity, he suggested, calling for an economic analysis to address the issue.

Source: Reuters

My note: I would love to see longer maternity leaves in the US. It is so hard to raise a family on one income these days, but having to go back to work at 6 weeks sure doesn’t support long-term breastfeeding. I’d heard rumours that Canada was looking at the benefits of extending mat leave to 18 months, but I’m not sure if it ever went further than rumour.

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3. Coming Back

Kris’ sister got a very bad burn on her face when she was around Meredith’s age. The doctors told his mom that she would have permanent scars because of it. Kris’ mom used vitamin E oil on it every day and it healed faster than the doctors expected and with no scarring. Maybe it wasn’t the vitamin E oil, maybe his sister just has really great skin (and if so I hope Meredith got her skin), but regardless I think I’m going to pick some up today.

Last night:

This morning:

You can see in the picture how red her nose is. She obviously hit that too though luckily it wasn’t bleeding at all. That picture doesn’t really show how puffy her lip is. The area inside where she bit it is very white. It looks like the world’s worst canker sore.

Things like this make me so glad I still nurse her though. She was sobbing last night, and I quickly cleaned it up a little bit to see how bad it was, gave her Arnica, then started nursing. The nursing calmed her down enough that we could clean it up better while she nursed and get a better picture of whether we should be heading to ER. A lot of people don’t know this, but the act of nursing produces hormones in the baby that act as pain relief. Breast milk has antibiotic properties, so was probably great to help clean the cuts inside and out of her mouth.

Once she was calmer and had nursed her fill, we gave her some frozen blueberries to try and help with the swelling (she wouldn’t let us near it with ice). We ended up giving her some Motrin too, as it was obvious she was still in pain and it was extremely swollen. She slept snuggled into the crook of my arm all night.

Today it doesn’t seem to be bothering her, though it’s still pretty swollen. I wish things like this didn’t happen to our babies.

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2. Baby Moon
3. In her own time

I’m on the look out for good recipes for healthy(-ish) snacks and lunches to keep around.  Things that can either be made in advance and will keep for a few days, or that are easy to make on the spot.  Ideally, I could make them up on Sunday, and they’d last for the week.  Right now, it will mostly be me eating them, but as Meredith starts eating more and more I’d like her to be able to help herself and not have to worry too much about what she’s eating.  I have lots of breakfast options: pancakes, muffins, yogurt, oatmeal, eggs…

I have some ideas for lunches and snacks.  I’m going to make those granola bars I made a couple of weeks ago again and not eat them all in one day.  Tortilla chips and hummous or sour cream are quick and easy and Meredith likes them.  I’d like to start keeping veggies/fruit and dip around.  Celery and peanut butter are a big hit with kids I know, though I’m not sure Meredith would do much more than lick the peanut butter off at this point.  I could get some raisins too.  I’m not a huge fan of raisins but I used to like them with celery and peanut butter.  I love yam fries, and usually make my own.  I bought a package of precut yam from Costco and froze them, then when I wanted them I could take them out and add oil and spices and throw them in the oven.   I’m going to try doing the same thing with yams I’ve bought.  I have them with a curry mayo dip, yum.  Deviled eggs are good, though I’m not sure how long they last.  Meredith loves cheese too, so I’d probably offer a few slices of cheese as well, though I am trying to avoid a lot of dairy.

I’d like to have a variety of things on hand for me and to offer Meredith when she’s hungry.  I’m keeping an eye out on Freecycle for a mini bar fridge, which we could keep snacks in for her that she could go to any time she wanted.  Some of the foods might not be as healthy as others, but I can stock up each day or week with what I’m comfortable with her having, and if she eats one thing all at once she will still have lots of other options on hand for later.  It will give her some control and choice over what she eats and when, while still ensuring that she has a variety of healthy options available.  It would also be good for me, since so often I forget to eat, or just don’t feel like I have time.

Related posts:

1. Muffin Tin Wednesday
2. Changing up the Menu
3. Meal Plan