Berry Muffins

Before I gave birth to my daughter I started a stash of freezer meals so I wouldn't be subjected to Taco Bell every night. One of the things I made were Whole Wheat Berry Muffins, they were truly yummy heated up in the microwave with a mug of coffee. It almost made the long night I'd had and the angry baby seem not so bad.

I've made them a handful of times since then, for a friend post-partum and most recently my Monday playgroup. They've always been received pretty well, my husband being the biggest fan requesting that I "make them all the time! I'm serious, all the time". He's not much for compliments, his favorite food gets a "yea, it's good" response.

I found the recipe here: How Sweet Eats>, please leave a compliment to the original site.

Berry Whole Wheat muffins:

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (optional: sub 1/2 cup for regular flour)
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup canola oil
1 egg
1 cup berries of your choice, fresh raspberries come out really tart and taste like summer (yum!) frozen berries are also just as good.
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 400

Combine dry ingredients, and wet ingredients and mix. Gently fold in berries, and spoon into a muffin tim. You do not need liners, but they do make for easy clean up. Bake for 15-20 mins. Can eat immediately, store in fridge or place in freezer safe bag and store for a month. Enjoy!

I tried to pretend I was a food blogger and get cute pictures of the muffins on a pretty plate, but I had a 14 month old following me and yelling belligerently for the food I was withholding. So instead I leave you with pictures of baby El stuffing muffin in her face. What you can't tell is that she's doubling fisting it in each pic.

When this is your childhood you have to laugh

One of the shows the husband and I indulge in is Modern Family. It took till the start of the second season before we watched an episode and we've been hooked ever since. The Season Finale had the youngest family member, Lily on a backpack leash at DisneyLand. Her parents are overwhelmed because she has the tendency to run off and one of her fathers thinks a leash is the safest bet. In the end they find another equally laughable solution, but I'm going to focus on the leash here.

The whole "to leash" or "not to leash" debate is an ongoing argument between Moms, one Dads and Grandparents often engage in. I've had friends relay times when their parents begged them to never put their grandchildren on a leash. We've all looked a little sideways and passed judgement at the mom doing a good job of ignoring her leashed kid, and thought that if she paid more attention she wouldn't need that leash. On the other hand I know I've also judged the mom with the litter of kids she's allowing to run wild, and felt sorry for the mom who is clearly outmanned and knows it. That mom needs a leash, or a really strong super stroller.

But I digress, I'm writing to tell a story, one I've heard told to me affectionately over the years by my Grandparents. It's the story of how I earned the nickname Soap on a Rope. How it's affected me and made me who I am.

When I was a couple of years old my Grandparents took me on a camping trip with my sister and some of their friends. Think Glamping, glamourous camping, like four poster beds in tents and other wasteful things, but minus the four poster bed and tent. Stupid analogy, we had a fancy trailer, and lounge type camping chairs out front. I'm sure there was some green grass like rug to "define the camp site".


On one of the days a Ranger showed up with a little girl that they did not recognize and asked if she belonged to them. Later we found out she was from a campsite over and her parents were too drunk to notice she had wandered off. But ignore the drunk/drinking part, from the way my Grandparents tell this story she would have wandered off had they been sober. Anyway they tell the Ranger, No, and point to me informing him "that One's ours". The Ranger compliments them on how they're watching me, tells them how often kids disappear out there and is on his way.

As for me, I'm tied to a tree on a long "lead line"... yep I was on a lead line. Or a rope strung from a tree and the trailer, kind of like the one I set up or my Mother in Laws dog last time we went camping. Not just any one would do me though, this one my Grandparents proudly declare had enough slack to allow me to wander the campsite and go inside the trailer. Hence, Soap on a Rope. Shameful. Apparently this was the same trip my big sister took it upon herself to lead me around a tree till I couldn't go any further. She swears to this day I had fun following her, till I realized I couldn't go any further and started screaming.

My point? That story is hilarious. Seriously, I was tied to a tree with a lead line. This was no watered down cute fuzzy backpack leash or a little wrist leash, nope, they probably bought the supplies at a local pet store. They even realized how ridiculous it was and gave me an equally ridiculous nickname to commemorate the experience. But they did it, I survived to tell about it mostly trauma free (sister torture excluded) and it's just another reason why I have a good sense of humor. Will I do the same to baby El? Probably not, but I might tell her I did at some point. It's a great way to keep your kid humble, tell them at one point in their life you tethered them to a tree. But because you love them and are humane, gave them enough slack to be able to get shelter. You can't buy that kind of humble pie from any sort of Maury style bad teen boot camp.

I shaved my legs for this... aka Baby El's birth story

Julie over at The Progressive Parent came up with this lovely idea she's dubbing #birthstrong. The idea is that through sharing the stories of our children's birth we can spread awareness of women's choices in birth, and feel the connection that all Mother's share.

Before I can tell Baby El's birth story I need to share with you my sister's, my mother's and her mother's birth stories. I'll be brief. My Grandmother was born in 1931, premature and very tiny, to a tiny woman. My Great-Grandmother Mercedes had the cards stacked against her, with PreEclampsia, Cephalopelvic Disproportion and Placenta Previa, my Grandmother entered this world through an incision on her mother's abdomen. Twenty one years later, my Mother made her entrance the same way. The reasoning? Cephalopelvic Disproportion, reportedly my Grandmother's pelvis was too narrow for any baby to be born through. I later learned that the doctor's never gave my Grandmother the chance to try, cut her open without a sign of a contraction on the horizon. Can't blame her, assuming you completely trust your doctors and they tell you a C-section was inevitable wouldn't you schedule it as well? Fast forward to 1981, my Mother a woman who inherited my Grandfather's tall and linebacker build, is in labor with my sister. The cards as slightly stacked against her, PreEclampsia, extra fluffy and high C-section rates. After sixteen hours of a labor by all accounts she managed well, the doctor's said it was time, baby's heart rate was dropping, she wasn't coming out the traditional way. She was wheeled to an OR and my sister, with her cord around her neck, was born shortly afterward. Three years later I was a repeat C-Section, complete with a cute story of my Dad's coworkers not believing I was going to be born that day.

Growing up I heard these stories of the three direct generations of Women before me delivering their children in the OR, constantly hearing that our "Pelvises are just too small". I accepted this as fact and repeated this to anyone when a conversation would come up about child birth. I was going to have a C-Section, my pelvis was too small. Fact.

When I became pregnant, I asked my original OB about my pelvis during the initial exam at my very first appointment. Maybe I thought it was a good follow up to my usual ice breaker "You know I normally make someone buy me dinner first..."? To be completely fair to her she did tell me it was narrow but that the relaxin hormone can and does widen the pelvis up. She made a big point about not counting out vaginal birth without having a Trial of Labor. I noted this and basically brushed her off mentally, here was my proof. My pelvis is too small, I'm broken. Much like needing artificial implements to see I would need doctor's to deliver my child(ren).

 At seven months pregnant, while on a trip with my extended family to New Orleans, my cousin says something that resonated with me. Summed up it was "Don't count yourself out, you could have a vaginal birth. You never know.". Fueled with this revelation, I researched, read books on natural Childbirth (another post) and in a hormone craze did a 180 on my birthing stance. They had been wrong before, given the right support and time I could do this. I wasn't broken.

With the exception of one high blood sugar level during a Glucose Test, and nausea in months three through six I had an easy pregnancy. Finally after what felt like an eternity my due date came, and I met it with grumpiness. I'd been into L&D two days earlier and was barely one centimeter dilated, so I was sure I was going over that date. I walked, I hopped, I squatted while telling baby to "GET OUT", I asked for the spiciest meal at a Chinese restaurant and I bitched. Oh how I bitched. On roughly four occasions that I night I had what I felt was a cross between a Braxton Hicks contraction and my baby kicking the crap out of my cervix, they didn't take my breath away but they forced me to sit up perfectly erect. Awkward while driving and didn't improve my mood. It was further proof I was in for a long two weeks. I still somewhat hopefully informed my husband "Maybe we'll have a baby tomorrow." He might have rolled his eyes at me. Sometime that night I went to bed, and woke up around 2 in the morning to pee like usual.

Friday, 4:30 am

I'm suddenly awake, and I know I'm in labor. My contractions feel like menstrual cramps, icky and deep inside of my uterus. I get up, as each contraction hits I have to walk, I have to move. I can't sit still, I can't go back to sleep, I tried to on the couch and couldn't. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a zombie in the mornings and I hate be awake at a ungodly hour (aka any time before 10). Going back to sleep sounds delicious to me at this moment but it's not working, I try to lay back down in bed and hop out with a whine during a contraction. Not from the pain, I'm pissed that I can't go back to sleep. I had been rolling my hips in figure eights and swaying side to side for months prior to this day as it was the only way to relieve pressure. I can't honestly remember if I continued to do so in the moments between contractions or during, I mainly remember my desire to walk away from myself. Sometime after the start of labor I start timing my contractions, just for shits and giggles. I have my 40 week appointment at 2:30 pm and I know I'll go in for that and only be 3 centimeters dilated. It's going to be a long weekend I tell myself over and over.

5:00 or 5:30 am

I'm in the guest bathroom, letting my husband sleep, and relieving myself (TMI?). While engaging in that and between contractions I'm googling on my cell phone "contractions under five minutes apart but less then a minute in length". Lovely Google confirms my suspicions, I was likely in Early Labor and it could be hours if not days of this. Bastards I mutter.

Snot nosed kid

Dear baby,

I love it when you nurse yourself to sleep and then reach your little hand up, up, up to touch my bare skin. You settle into my warmth, finding comfort in human contact, and start snoring. Even when you sound like your Great Grandpa, or a lawn mower on the loose, and your face is covered in snot, you are so beautiful. Watching you sleep can wash clean the hardest moments with you. You know the ones, where you want to crawl into my lap and don't understand why I push you away. Those moments are generally when I'm yelling "hot! Hot, oven! No!" or "Mommy needs to wipe!", and it's ok I think we both know that you've forgiven me for my cruelty by nap time.

You are beautiful and a true vessel for all the hope and love I have to give to this world. Be safe, wear clean underwear and always know someone loves you. Also, keep in mind that I have photographic evidence of some embarrassing moments and I'm really not afraid to use them.

Lazy

Take notes ladies and gents, I'm going to lay some Mom knowledge on you that will rock your world. You know that moment of the day (or all day) were you sit down on your cushy behind and space out for a bit? Or where your Facebook, Twitter, etc gets updated? Actually this moment, were you found my blog and are now reading it.

So thinking of the moment, and not including nap time, what is your child(ren) doing right now? Mine is riding her plastic rocking horse backwards and shoving blocks inside of a receptacle that takes balls. I tell myself she's a creative thinker and is trying to get the world to conform to her not the other way around.

If your child(ren) are playing happily by themselves pat yourself on the back. You're not neglecting your child or ignoring them for your own selfish desires, thank you Attachment Parenting for further Mom Guilt. Your playing child is engaging in Exploratory Free Play, and is learning through exploring their environment safely. There are preschools dedicated to this type of learning, think Montessori.

See? You didn't need a fancy degree to instinctually stimulate your child's curiosity of the world and problem solving skills. The only tools you need are a phone with Internet capabilities, the Facebook app and enough toys to supply a daycare. Good to go. Now excuse me, there is a ball I need to pry out of a block shaped receptacle.

Note: there hasn't been a sarcasm font invented yet, so I'm going to add this disclaimer. Obviously if you're going to let your child play on their own you should be supervising and the environment should be a safe one. Outlets plugged, no knives etc.

Laundry

I've got baby's diapers in the wash & in the meantime....

Bad Mom or Evil Genius?

Mooch

Edit: I was editting this post and changing up the photo when I made an error and deleted the whole thing. Then pulled a stupid move and "reverted to draft" rather than just exited out of the whole thing thus saving myself the heartache. This is a rewrite.
I've had a few ongoing jokes to explain why Baby El cries and screams when I leave the room without her. The jokes go like this:

She's smart, she knows where the food comes from and gets nervous when it walks out of the room.

She's just worried the food isn't coming back.

I've also taught her the handsign for milk. It's a fun party trick she'll pull out, climbing into my lap, staring at my chest very intently and signing "MILK" with both hands. She's very serious about her food, if I could remove my breasts and leave it with whoever is watching her she'd probably be happy as can be. So it's an understatment for me to say that weaning is going to be notfun, a process that I've already started. Baby El has always nursed on demand durring the day and at eleven months has been known to nurse almost every two-three hours. Most days she averages nursing six times a day. I've started cutting back to four times a day, through distraction techniques or to be completely honest by me personally not being so lazy. Once you get over the newborn hump breast feeding is such a lazy mom's way to parent. Seriously. It goes like this:

Oh, you're bored? I'm bored too. Want to nurse? Hello facebook

Here, mom wants to sleep more come into bed and nurse while I pass out for a bit.

I really do not know how you bottle feeding mother's do it, I cannot imagine all the extra work and stuff to carry. Even if I wasn't so lazy, baby girl is and always has been a comfort nurser. Sometimes she wants to nurse and that's the only thing she's going to take, I'm so excited for her to be a teenager. No really. The introduction of solid foods has proved that she's a mooch. Bring out a tupperware container at a playgroup and she's on you in the blink of an eye. There is no shame, you'll see that cute little bow mouth opened like a birdie waiting for a worm, and those little hands going up to grab what she can reach. I've even been somewhat ashamed when she whined at someone for not giving her food quick enough.

With my weaning goals in mind, yesterday I met with three of my closest friends for group pictures. You know it was all the rage at one point to take pictures with your BFF's, we just kept on the tradition. Baby El was already on her third nurse of the day and I was holding out the last one for right before bed. Something she wasn't too thrilled about but easily distracted by her exciting new walking skill. We were there for probably an hour and starting to finish up the pictures when the smallest of the babies decided she was hungry. My friend T sat down with her baby and started nursing. I think at that point Baby El's mooch senses started tingling, as the next thing I knew she had climbed up T's lap and was staring T down. With angry eyebrows and all, she started making Milk signs and then used her other hand to PUSH T's baby away. Eleven months old and ready to rumble over someone elses food. She was like a drug addict trying to get her hit. Clearly I was right.