Winding Down

This week, Emily’s doctor gave me the green light to begin the weaning process.  I never thought I would get to this point.  For the past 11 months, I have timed my life around Emily’s next nursing session and now that it is coming to an end, I will sadly miss all of the inconveniences, mishaps and memories.

When you first start out nursing a newborn, you feel like your entire life has been put to a halt to make way for a 24 hour a day buffet for your little one.  The physical and emotional stress of this grand responsibility can be difficult to bear at times.  Fortunately, the nursing sessions eventually get shorter, less frequent and less painful.  Sooner or later, you begin to enjoy this time with your baby.

When I look back at my nursing experiences, I would have to thank a few key things that enabled me to nurse more discreetly and easily.  First, the tinted windows in my car have played an important role during those desperate nursing times in the backseat of the car.  Second, the growing number of nursing areas in shopping malls have been a godsend.  Some are more luxurious than others, but anything is better than feeling like a tourist attraction while nursing your baby on a bench in the middle of a busy mall.  Third, my nursing pillow has allowed Emily to nurse in the most comfortable position while giving me two free hands to catch up on my celebrity gossip with a magazine or read a good book.  Finally, all of the support from family and friends has definitely helped me along the way.  There are so many thoughtful and loving reasons why a new mom chooses to breastfeed or not to breastfeed and whatever the decision, it needs to be supported by everyone around her.  I am lucky to have such wonderful people in my life who have supported me the whole way through, given me advice and shared their most embarrassing stories on this topic. 

So as we begin the weaning process, I will definitely miss the wonderful and embarrassing moments I have experienced.  However, I can now look forward to new memories with Emily as she tries new foods on her own and develops her own tastes.  Maybe my blog will expand to include a new category – “In the Kitchen with Emily”.  She can show you how to make a mean beef stew – as long as you don’t mind it pureed.

Day one of the nursing journey.....we make a pretty good team!

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Oh What A Night……

This is what happens when you are in a rush to eat dinner.  When you are absolutely starving, have a cranky baby on your hands and have decided to make a new recipe for dinner that involves way too many steps.  How did this happen, exactly?  Well, a glass top to a casserole dish fell off the shelf onto a large measuring cup of crushed tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, a pan of sizzling onions, a toaster….you get the picture.  The glass shattered into a billion pieces, including all over me.  Luckily, nothing hit Emily, who was happily jumping away in her jumperoo on the other side of the kitchen.

Once the glass shattered, I stood in the centre of the mess, slightly bloody and a little frustrated…well, maybe a lot frustrated.  Any step in any direction would result in a lot of pain.  The most disheartening was the work I put into making dinner – chopping up onions, garlic and basil, measuring out ingredients, all while trying to entertain Emily – all of this effort was destroyed.  Luckily, Daniel was home to corral Jerry out of the kitchen, move the bouncy baby a little further out of the way, and get the vacuum to start the clean up.   

Once the clean up was complete, I found a small bit of energy left to continue with dinner preparations.  Dinner lasted about 5 minutes – partly because we were starving and partly because it was way past someone’s bedtime. 

To cap the night off, Emily accumulated a large amount of poop in her diaper during the dinner debacle.  This poop seeped out onto my arm while I was nursing her.  I didn’t know what this strange, brown, smelly mess was until I lifted up Emily’s shirt to discover the poopy explosion.  Luckily the mess was mostly contained within her diaper and luckily, Daniel is the one to change Emily at the end of the night!   My only hope is that Jerry will not contribute to this disastrous night….let’s cross our fingers!

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The Jumper

This is my favourite summer outfit on Emily – the jumper.  This outfit has been a big trend this season for women and although I would love to own a bigger version of Emily’s outfit, I can’t bring myself to buy one.  I tried one on a couple of months ago and saw a 29-year-old trapped in an outfit much better suited for someone 10 years my junior.  This is the first time I realized that I was too old for a certain style.  Once you become a mother and start creeping into your 30s, you begin to realize that jumpers, cut off shorts and mini skirts just don’t seem right anymore.

I was always thankful that my own mother never tried to dress too young for her age.  She has always had a classic, beautiful and age appropriate sense of style.  I always shudder to think of those mothers who appear on Dr. Phil who find it appropriate to dress like their scantily clad teenage daughters.  In my opinion, it is inappropriate to be scantily clad at any age.   However, I do enjoy Dr. Phil psychoanalyzing the heck out of these mothers to find out the “root cause” of this inappropriate clothing.  The most entertaining, however, is when these women get the typical “mom makeover” – turtle neck, short hair cut and some ugly shoes and promise their daughters to never go back to their old ways (yah right).

I hope that by dressing appropriately and saving my daughter from any future embarrassment that I will never have to suffer through a “mom makeover” and that Emily will not push the limits too much with her own wardrobe.  For now, I continue to enjoy dressing Emily myself with no arguments – although, I am certain that this will change soon!

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Destructo

Emily has managed to turn our entire house upside down.  The amount of toys seem to increase week by week, the dirty diapers are producing a lovely smell throughout the entire house and the laundry is piling up by the second.  On top of that, she manages to destroy anything that is within her crawling path.  Emily thrives amongst unknown territory.  She is no longer satisfied by sitting and playing with her toys in the designated play areas of our home.  She would much prefer to pull things out of drawers, rip newspaper or magazines, unroll the toilet paper and go through the garbage.  I have nicknamed her “Destructo” and there is no space in our house that she will leave untouched.  I always thought that I would be able to contain Emily’s messiness to her room but every single room in our house has been left with Emily’s print of destruction and unfortunately, I cannot keep up with her!  I clean up during her nap time, only to surrender to “Destructo’s” wrath once she is well-rested and eager to take on more uncharted territory within our house.  You better watch out…..Destructo may come to your house next!

Now, these are the empty garbage bags. How can I go about getting ahold of the full garbage bags? Those are SO much more interesting.

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Gluten Free Bread Tips

Making bread can be a difficult venture.  When you take away the gluten, the challenge becomes impossible at times.  My attempts at baking gluten free bread have been numerous and disappointing at times.  My main problems occur with the dough not rising properly and the bread cooling to a hard, gluten free rock.  I have accumulated a lot of great tips throughout my baking adventures, which have helped me to bake better tasting bread that rises well and is a little softer.  I have not found a gluten free bread that tastes as good as regular bread, but I hope to reach this accomplishment at some point.  For now, I will continue to tweak my recipes and use the following tips when baking:

1.  Always work with room temperature ingredients – yeast reacts better to warmer ingredients, which helps the bread to rise.

2.  Use 1/4 cup of milk powder in bread recipes – this ingredient helps to add volume, texture and flavour to the final product.

3.  Add 1/8 tsp ascorbic acid (vitamin C) to the recipe.  Yeast reacts better in an acidic environment and this ingredient will also help to prolong the shelf life of your bread.

4.  Add 1 tbsp mayonnaise and 1 tsp of fruit pectin to your recipes to add moisture.

5.  Converting a recipe to gluten free requires the addition of more liquids due to the dry consistency of gluten free flours.

6. To rise the dough, turn your oven to 200 degrees. When it reaches this temperature turn the oven off and place a shallow baking pan partially filled with hot water in the oven. Lightly cover the loaf pan with a damp towel and place in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes or until the dough rises to the top of the loaf pan.

7. Gluten free bread typically does not last long at room temperature – once it comes out of oven, it hardens quite quickly.  Once the bread has cooled, slice loaf and place in the freezer.  Gluten free bread is best when toasted. 

8.  If you end up with a loaf of bread that is best used as a paper weight, do not throw it out.  Gluten free bread disasters make great gluten free bread crumbs.  Simply blend up the bread and place in a ziplock bag and put in the freezer.  Tastes great for chicken or eggplant parmesan.

Gluten Free Raisin Bread

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Veggies & Fruits

Introducing solid food to Emily has been a fun and messy experience.  If you search for advice on this topic, most people will recommend feeding vegetables to a baby first so that they are more likely to accept them.  As a new mom, I followed this advice, giving Emily cooked carrot, sweet potato and squash.  However, I quickly realized that I was only delaying the inevitable.  Once Emily got her little paws on some fruit – blueberries, melon, banana – her sweet tooth quickly developed, making it difficult to feed her veggies.  While pureed vegetables are usually acceptable to Ms. Emily, the veggies that are used as finger foods are typically dismissed.  Emily humours me at times by sticking a small piece of carrot in her mouth.  I realize that this attempt at making me happy was a trick as I will usually find the chewed up carrot in the bottom of her bib or on the floor for Jerry.

I guess all I can do is continue my attempts at developing Emily’s taste for veggies.  But let’s face it, if I was asked to choose between a sweet, delicious and refreshing slice of watermelon or a bland piece of cooked carrot, I would choose the watermelon.  Wouldn’t you?

Awww.....Mom! Carrots again?? Why don't you just give up and give me some blueberries??

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Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I love chocolate chip cookies and have struggled to find a gluten free version.  I have altered this recipe many times and am happy to share a recipe that produces a soft and chewy cookie.  The teff flour and two eggs help to make these cookies extra chewy.

Ingredients

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tbsp gluten-free vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup teff flour
1/2 cup potato starch
1/2 cup tapioca flour
3/4 cup white rice flour
1/4 cup sweet rice flour
1 1/2 tsp xantham gum
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 cups milk chocolate chips (or peanut butter chips or mint chocolate chips….whatever you’re in the mood for!)

Directions

1. Mix together flours, xantham gum, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

2. Blend butter, brown sugar and white sugar.  Add vanilla and eggs one at a time

3. Mix flour mixture with wet mixture until smooth

4. Add chocolate chips

5. Line baking sheet with parchment paper and bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees for 8 minutes

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Babies on a Plane

I never saw the horror movie “Snakes on a Plane”, but if it’s just as scary as being stuck on a plane with an active 10 month old on your lap, I would consider watching it.  On our flight to Prince Edward Island last week, Emily and I were lucky enough to have an entire row of the plane to ourselves.  Emily happily sat in her car seat, looking out the window while Mom read her book.  Unfortunately, the same luck didn’t come with our return flight to Toronto last night.   When I finally emerged from the plane, exhausted, thirsty, smelly and with a desperation to go pee, I had to ask myself a few questions:

1. Why did I decide to wear a dress that was next to impossible to nurse Emily in a discreet way?

2. Why couldn’t Emily wait to nurse until we were off the plane, like I had originally planned? 

3.  Why didn’t Emily want to sleep in my arms?  Why didn’t she want to sit on my lap?  Why did she not want to play with ANY of the toys I brought on board for her? 

4.  Why did the flight attendant choose to not offer me a drink?  Bouncing a 21 pound baby up and down on your lap can be quite tiring and a nice glass of water…..or something a bit stronger would have been nice. 

5. Why did Emily poop 3 times that day?  Why did one of these incidents occur the moment the plane took off and the moment that the two people sitting next to me fell asleep?  Why do baby’s poopy diapers smell so badly….especially when you are trapped in a stuffy plane with the poopy diaper inches from your nose for a two-hour period?

6. Why didn’t I go pee before the flight took off? 

Emily has been on a total of 8 flights so far in her short life and I have learned that the older she gets, the more difficult it is to keep her entertained and happy on the plane.  I sometimes miss the days when Emily would simply fall asleep in my arms.  Unfortunately, those days are behind me and I will just have to prepare myself better the next time. 

En route to PEI - an entire row of the plane all to ourselves and a happy baby in her own seat!

"Umm....Mom....maybe you should change before we go on the plane tonight. I think I may get a bit hungry."

"This Cow's ice cream is sooo delicious but I might have a few extra poopy diapers for you, Mom."

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Packing for Two

Emily and I are packing to visit her grandparents in Prince Edward Island.  Packing is a skill that develops quickly with motherhood.  You learn to only bring the bare minimum for yourself - extras are left behind to accomodate for the more important things – diapers, bibs, toys, food, etc.  Gone are the days of packing my entire closet into a huge suitcase.  My husband no longer asks if I really need a pair of shoes for each day of vacation.  So the next time you see a mom walking through the airport with a huge suitcase, remember that 10% of the contents are actually hers….the rest belongs to the baby.

Let's pack a few more diapers....just in case.

Are these an extra pair of shoes, Mom? We might need to take these out to make room for my toys.

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Noisy Naps

My biggest pet peeve has to be noises, loud or quiet, that disturb Emily’s nap.  I make a concerted effort each day during nap time to tip toe quietly around the house, to refrain from using any loud appliance and to keep the phone close by so that it will only ring once.  Unfortunately, after all of this effort, the world seems to come alive the moment Emily’s eyes close.  Salespeople ring our door bell, advertisements fly through our mail slot prompting Jerry to freak out, landscapers feel the need to mow the lawn in front of our house and the garbage truck decides to loudly rumble down our street.  So, while I am in the house cursing every creek in the floor, contemplating a shower or using the hair dryer, the world goes on with little regard for nap time. 

How do you expect me to get my beauty rest with all of this noise??

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