It's the Small Things

Okay, enough gloom, here's a quick rundown of little events that have made me happy.

Yesterday, I dumpster dived food.

Okay, it wasn't in the dumpster, it was in a pile behind my favorite grocery store. But it was technically expired and free. I scored three boxes of organic spinach, four boxes of organic spring mix salad, a bag of organic arugula, two bags of organic salad mix, two containers of organic herbs, several containers of pre-cut watermelon, and three perfectly good mushrooms.

I whipped up some coconut butter, and it wasn't hard!

Using this recipe from Coconut Mama I made some sweet coconut butter, which is like peanut butter. She uses 2 cups dried coconut in her food processor, I used 3-ish cups in my blender to be sure I had enough butter to clear the blades and still move around.

Seeing Doozer love food so much.

It's a little heart-paining for me because I wanted to exclusively breastfeed for a year, but Doozer has been demanding solid food since she was 4.5 months old, I finally gave in at 5 months. She loves bananas, homemade hummus, curried chickpeas, and berries.




She does not like spinach or rice. She'll try to eat everything, even contraband items like peanut butter and wheat and soy. Heck, plates of food on the ground are her strongest motivation to crawl. It's truly a joy to see her discover food.

Making and eating some truly amazing gluten-free flat bread.

And it was quick! And chewy! And bendy! A total of 20 minutes to mix and bake and then BAM! Some really yummy bread. I found the recipe over at Gluten Free Gobsmacked, but replaced the sorghum flour with teff flour and made my own millet flour and replaced the potato starch with cornstarch. I also didn't use milk powder or replace it with anything. Oh, and I only did salt as a seasoning, but I'll be sure to try out other spices. I'm craving some good caraway bread, so that might be next. BuggaBoo loved it and kept asking for more bread. When I put it away he was so sad because he thought it was all gone.

Well, that's all I could think of right now. And reading over the list does make me feel happier, maybe I should do this more often. DO you guys have anything small pleasures to report?

Sick Little Boy

This post will lack literary sparkle, my apologies.

BuggaBoo has been sick. He started vomiting the 25th and didn't stop until the 30th. This is the fourth time he's had a vomiting episode in four months, the last one was the first week in August. Each episode is characterized by the fact that he can't keep anything down, not even breastmilk or Pedialyte.

Friday night we had to take him into the ER for a bag of fluids and some IV Zofran. He weighed 26 pounds with clothes and shoes on, which he usually weighs 27.5 pounds naked. They also pulled a vial of blood because BuggaBoo had petechiae on his chest and neck, which can be a sign of platelet problems. Thankfully they were a result of his forceful vomiting. While we were at the hospital Doozer started throwing up, she stopped the 31st. But this is the first time Doozer has been sick with a stomach thing.

So we took BuggaBoo to his pediatrician Monday to see what we could find. His weight was up to 28 lbs clothed. The doctor found it to be an interesting coincidence that the vomiting episodes started after BuggaBoo swallowed the bobby pin. Also, the blood work from the ER noted that his bilirubin levels were slightly elevated but his liver enzymes were normal. So now we begin to test for things.

BuggaBoo had an x-ray on Monday which was clear. He fasted and went in for an ultrasound on Tuesday. They looked at his stomach, intestines, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, spleen, kidneys, and bladder. We'll get results in a few days.

So right now we don't know what's up. Hopefully it's just monumental bad luck. All I know is I hate it when my baby looks like this:

For Your Viewing Pleasure

BuggaBoo chose to watch this video tonight. I think it's a winner.

Montage in Red

All pictures taken at my parents' home.

Be aware there might be more color montages. This was probably inspired by the lovely Darling Petunia.

Lady in Red Shoes

So a while ago I felt I needed a pick-me-up for my feet. But, who wants to spend money? Not me! So this is what I found in my closet:




I bought these wedges a while back from Target for five bucks and I love them. Obviously, though, they've seen better days, probably because I love them too much. The first thing I did was take some E6000 glue and secure the peeling edges. Then I sanded the wedge part to get ready for painting. After sanding I wiped the wedges down with nail polish remover to get all the grit off. It made the surface sticky, which made it better for the paint to stick. I love it when things work out like that.



I picked out the perfect candy-apple red acrylic paint from my extensive paint stash and slapped on 4-5 coats of paint. Then I sealed it with 3 coats of glossy Modge-Podge. Voila! New-lookin' shoes.



Lemmie tell ya, I *strut* when I wear these babies. And what could be better than red?

Lonely

Sorry for the lack of substantial posts around here, my life imploded. Here's the laundry list, 'cause I want to get it all out with as least typing as possible:

1) Our car died, something with the front differential and the axle. A good friend of ours that owns a used car dealership is helping is fix it for extremely cheap but getting parts has been troublesome. We would like to buy all used since we drive a 1992 Toyota Camry and it's not worth it to put in new parts but one of the parts we need is NEVER sold used because you need new gaskets to rebuild it and the manufacturer doesn't supply gasket kits. Awesome.

2) Our cats brought home fleas. My entire house is flea infested now, and all four of us humans are getting bitten constantly. I don't want to use chemical means to get rid of them because Doozer is constantly on the carpet or trying to eat the cat. We've been brushing out Pistachio (the kitty that comes home, I haven't seen Bella in days [it's the summer, she goes feral {how many parenthesis can I put in here}]) a few times a day and drowning the fleas in soap water. We've also been trying to vacuum several times a days but that brings me to point number...

3) My house is a disaster. Why? Let's look at points four and five...

4) BuggaBoo is growing or something and is in need of major Mommy time. And...

5) So is Doozer. She's learning to crawl (almost there!) and teething and getting sick again and starting separation anxiety. So either my arms are full of baby or she's crying on the floor or we're sleeping together in bed. She's also only napping for about five minute stretches (oh, how I wish I was making that up) so she's also really sleep deprived.

6) The Hubby is still having to work mandatory overtime. So that on top of already having to work nights isn't fun.

7) I deleted my Facebook account. Which has been a pretty positive move, but has an unintended side affect.

I'm lonely.

And it's more than just the deletion of my account that is causing my loneliness. I mean, I hardly have a present or conscious spouse around. My car is dead, which makes getting places difficult. Going on walks is always possible but it's so hard to get out of the house. I don't like making phone calls because BuggaBoo can be playing by himself so nicely but as soon as I pick up the receiver *WHAM!* he attacks me, starved for attention. If I don't get off the phone quickly he then spirals downward into malicious behaviors to force my attention.

And I have a few friends from the past that I'm pretty sure aren't friends with me anymore but don't have the courtesy to tell me so, which is a major bummer. I have made new friends, so that's good and wonderful, but it's not a straight conversion process. Seriously, one new friendship doesn't make up for one dissolved one.

I'm trying to figure out where things fell apart, and I'm feeling anxious about it. I think it's my fault because it's after I share what I deem to be needed information that the other person clams up. I know that last sentence looks really rude on the surface, so let me defend myself a bit. I feel strongly about many things in life, but the big ones in my life right now are attachment parenting, breastfeeding, natural and midwife-attended childbirth, male and female genital integrity, co-sleeping, vegetarianism and veganism, delayed or non-vaccination, and homeschooling. I know that looks like an overwhelming list, but most of them are covered under birth and parenting practices.

I totally understand that all of the above are touchy subjects. Most were touchy with me when they were first brought to my attention. I actually became "converted" to attachment parenting trying to disprove it. We were going to circumcise our sons for many reasons until we researched it in depth. We were going to practice cry-it-out with our babies until we read about how it can be damaging.

I know that situations vary for different families. I get it. I'm not living in some rose-colored hole in the ground. I also know that I might be the determining factor in some of my friend's eating and parenting decisions. I don't think I'm being overly aggressive about my point of view. For instance, a friend was having a conversation about vaccinations and the LDS Church's stance on them. She said it was not open for discussion, but then the comments were starting to be condescending towards those who choose not to vaccinate. Here is my reply:

I understand and respect all of your opinions, but please don't think that people who don't vaccinate are somehow stupid or ill-informed.

As for polio when the government started vaccinating for it the vaccine was a live-virus vaccine. All the cases of polio after that were contracted from the vaccination. Now that they are using a dead-virus vaccination it's not 100% effective, so the child that does contract polio may well have been vaccinated for it.

*sigh* I'm not trying to debate, please believe me. I want to bring up different point of views. I truly understand the Church's stance on this matter. I also understand that the Church knows that individual circumstances vary (think about working mothers). For my family we are following a delayed, limited vaccine routine due to the correlation of vaccinations and Type I diabetes. Our pediatrician agrees.

Yes, I'm fishing for responses like, "Oh, that was perfectly tactful," or, "Thought provoking, not aggressive!" But I also want to know if I stepped out of my bounds. See, this friend has not replied back to this or any of the several comments I have left her on her baby blog. Not one. I'm sure that I've lost this friend, someone who called me twin in college because we were so alike. And because we disagree?

Oh, look at this, I'm turning this into a real whine-fest, aren't I? Sorry, my blog, my open journal, I'm going to whine if I wanna.

I'm just curious when it happened that we became such a polite society that it because the preferable option to stop talking to someone rather than tell them you don't agree with their point of view. I know this is possible, I have this relationship with my sister-in-law. We have a lot in common (of course, my brother married her) but there are things we disagree on, notably vaccinations aned co-sleeping. And that's okay! We still talk. Heck, we even talk about those points on which we differ and still have friendly, horizon-expanding conversations.

Okay, this is getting really rambly and I don't know how to end it, so here I try. I'm lonely, that sucks. Talk to your friends, because if you don't that sucks. And having fleas in your home sucks.

They Grow Up So Quickly...

"Oh my gosh! Did you see what she was wearing
yesterday? I know. Anyways, I gotta go. Call me, we'll do lunch. Ciao!"