A Good Day

Today was a good day. For starters I got to sleep almost 6 hours BY. MYSELF. without a warm, wiggly baby cuddled up against me preventing me from moving and getting comfortable. Unfortunately, at 2:30 she DID come sleep with me, and then woke up at 5:30. But I felt okay enough to get up around 6...which is the first time in the last 3 days that I actually felt rested!

Sadie was in such a good mood this morning when she woke up (as she usually is), so I decided it's time to do this solid food thing. For real. I put Sadie in her high chair, nuked some heart shaped frozen banana cubes (with a little breastmilk mixed in, of course) and then sat down and ate my own bowl of cereal. I have this crazy idea that if Sadie sees me/us eating at the table, she'll learn that that's what we want her to do also. Pay no mind that we're still not sure what she can actually see. But she watched me eat, then she ate the ENTIRE serving of bananas I made her. So maybe it works.

When we tried solid foods a month ago I had to practically WIPE the spoon off in Sadie's mouth, then most of it would come out via tongue-thrusting, and I'd scoop it up and reapply. And she did okay like this until one day she just stopped trying altogether. This morning, however, she was able to close her mouth around the spoon and actually suck the bananas off and swallow them...with minimal mess. I was amazed how far she's come in just 1 month, and we haven't even been practicing.

Another reason we sort of took a break from solids was the constipation. When we first gave her squash it took 4 days before we saw poop. And she was a VERY unhappy baby up until that wonderful day we finally smelled it. It took the bananas 5 days! This morning I gave her a lot of water after she finished her bananas in hopes that it'll speed up the process and make it less painful...for everyone.

I also did some wheat grinding today. I ground (by hand) more wheat than I ever have in one "sitting"...5 cups!! It was 30 minutes of sweaty, muscle-burning, mouth-breathing grinding. But it was SSSOOOOOO worth it when that bread came out of the oven that I made! Also along the lines of bread, I learned how to manipulate the bread machine into kneading my dough for me, but I did everything else by hand. I'm thinking I like making bread better this way and now I want a Kitchen Aid stand mixer. Brian thinks I'm crazy because I've already asked for a food dehydrator. But both my birthday AND Christmas are coming up!

Brian fixed my car this morning. Ever since we returned from California it's been rattling. We accidentally hit some debris on the freeway somewhere near Riverside and I think that's what caused it. But he fixed it, and now it doesn't rattle. So instead of a super ghetto rattly car, only the brakes squeak now, so it's just a little bit ghetto. Also in car news, I asked Brian if we get a bunch of money from winning our lawsuit against the pharmacy if we could buy a van. He wasn't opposed to it, which is HUGE! PS. we're calling a lawyer in the morning.

Later in the afternoon Grandpa came over (Sadie's grandpa, not mine) and took Sadie in the swimming pool. This is what he does when he comes over: He holds Sadie while running all over the pool killing the wasps that land there. He lines up the dead wasps in a row on the pool deck and then counts them up and brags about how many "kills" he has. It's fun for them. They bond over death, I guess.

We got to go to the nursery and buy seeds while they were in the pool. In Arizona you have a summer growing season and a winter season (since the winters here are AWESOME) and it's just about time to plant for winter. We decided to go the seed route this time to expand our options a little from just the starters they sell at The Home Depot. We got carrots, that are different colors. We also got broccoli, lettuce, leeks, peas, and spinach. We can't wait to start our little seedlings and watch them grow.

Speaking of watching things grow, this summer we tried growing eggplant. As of now it's the only thing left alive in the garden. Brian picked about 34 eggplants this morning!! Mind you, I'm not that crazy about eggplant, and beyond eggplant parmesan and ratatouille, there's not much else you can do with them. Anybody want some eggplant? No seriously.

Brian made something called Pasta Alla Norma for dinner. It was like spaghetti with eggplant marinara and it was pretty good! My dad stayed for dinner and between the 3 of us we polished off a whole loaf of my yummy fresh bread from earlier with our eggplant pasta.

Finally, I conquered my diaper stink problem. Since we have SUPER hard water, it creates a build-up on Sadie's cloth diapers and they were REALLY starting to stink! Even fresh pee wreaked of ammonia. Now those of you who use disposables might be used to stinky dipes (we constantly think Sadie's poopy when she's in a disposable) but we're not, and we don't like it. I also think my recent detergent switch may have caused some build-up leading to the great stink. So I did some research online about it (which consisted of checking cloth diapering forums and asking my facebook friends) and then I washed the dipes like normal last night. This morning I washed them again with a little vinegar and no soap, then I hung them out to dry for most of the day. Voila! NO. MO'. STINK!

Today was probably the best Labor Day I've ever had, and that's good because Sadie and I have a couple of really busy weeks. This week we have 2 doctor appointments, 5 therapies (one of which is something new we're trying, music therapy with a harpist!) and a birthday party. Next week we have 2 doctor appointments 4 therapies, 2 La Leche League meetings, and a visit from a social worker! Hopefully the week after that we'll have less car riding! Someday Sadie WILL be able to ride in the car without glass-shattering screaming. And in case you're wondering...I'm still running!!!

Unexpected Growth

Last year around this time we made a discovery. Our baby watermelon vines burned up in the scorching heat. This was especially tragic as watermelons are my wife's favorite form of nutrition. When planning our garden this year we decided against any sort of melon crop because our loss still stung too much.

We planted other successful items including this year including an apricot tree in our back and a Hong Kong Orchid for eventual shade in the front. When planting this I dug a hole. The put the trees into the hole. The backfill for the hole was a nice 50/50 mix of native soil and our compost. We compost everything that was once living but never had legs or fins.

Often times when using compost unusual things sprout up quickly and I am curious enough to not kill these items. We've so far gotten green onions and...


at least 15 more of these butternut squash. And...


three honeydew melons. Not pictured is one spaghetti squash we salvaged before its vine perished in the hot hot sun. All of the items, except the spaghetti squash (which grew from our main garden which is odd considering I put no compost there) came from the soil of our two planted trees. Roughly 10 butternut squash in the front of our house and 10 in the back. There is a slowly dying vine in our front yard below our tree that has provided us so much homegrown food. I am positive our HOA is not thrilled. I am also positive that I am thrilled and that trumps stodgy HOA prudes any day.

We're now in the process of finding new and interesting ways to use up all this butternut squash. One huge advantage of having so much bn squash is the life of the squash. It can be kept for a month or so which spaces out our consumption.

Tomorrow, a recipe...

Adventures in the garden part 2

Another garden post from Brian!

We had one egg plant from our garden. Not enough to make baba ganoush or ratatouille. I couldn't find a good recipe that incorporated a small eggplant so in the spirit of all people who wish-to-eat-this-damn-thing-right-now-no-matter-what I made up a recipe. I started with the eggplant.

I sliced the eggplant and salted it. Dabbed the eggplant dry on a towel while wiping off excess salt.


In order to properly season items I like to use those plastic bags we get at the grocery store to put fruit in. A Tupperware would work too. In this instance it was olive oil, salt, pepper, dried oregano and some dried rosemary. I was going for a mediterranean flavor. Once everything is in the bag, including eggplant, give the thing a healthy shake in order to coat it evenly.
Bake the rounds at 350 flipping occasionally to create an even browning. I might do this again at a higher temp as the planties didn't end up crispy enough for my liking.


At this point the eggplant can be used in a variety of ways and I decided to keep with the theme by inserting them into a whole wheat pita. I added cheese too and then toasted the thing to melt the cheese and crisp up the pita.
Me, working from home, enjoying my lunch that took an hour to create.

Life's silly lessons: celery

Brian's first post...

This is our harvest season. Right before it gets too hot and all of our plants burn up. We tried some new items this year - including celery. We didn't know anything about growing celery; most importantly when to harvest.

This was our celery.


We called Karl, who was a farmer, and he explained that we had to pull the celery from the roots, clean the roots and then trim the plant as necessary. It took me 5 minutes of prying around the roots with a spade to finally get the thing up. Our table is 4 feet in diameter.

It was so overgrown, full of dirt, and deposits of insects that Christie did not allow me to clean it inside. So it was cleaned outside.

All of the larger stalks were as big a round as a silver dollar. We could only use new growth and chutes from the main growth.

We learned that celery that is too mature tends to be very tough and stringy. We have what seems like an infinity of tough and stringy celery. Grown from our back yard!


I made soup. Christie did not like the tough, stringy celery. It did not soften during cooking. The soup was chalked full of tough, stringy celery. I refused to throw it away and am currently on day 3 of celery and peanut butter for lunch.

What we've learned: celery is salty and especially so due to our highly salted water. We also learned that harvesting at the right time is advantageous. Next year we might skip the celery.