Day 1: Corned Beef

Yesterday was the last of twelve days off that Mister had for Christmas. The company he works for is fabulous with that - only Friday the 21st was a vacation day, the rest were given to him. But I chose to spend it with him rather than beginning my month o' blogging.

Today's reflection is extremely trivial, but to parents of small children, it might be good to know.

Both Mister and I are avid fans of corned beef. We just love it. We can eat an obscene amount of it hot, and then corned beef hash the next morning usually means that there are no leftovers. At all. We love the stuff. So we were thrilled to see that Peanut enjoys it as much as we do. It's so tender after a day in the crockpot that she loved it... Cut into small pieces, it's soft and easy to pick up. Perfect toddler food, right?

Until the diapers started hitting. Corned beef poop is the most toxic odor that has ever come out of my child. And there's been some doozies so far. I was trying to describe this smell to Mister, and my saying "it really smells like corned beef" wasn't helping, since he finds that smell appealing. But somehow the appetizing odor of corned beef gets warped into this dreadful mutant gut-twisting stench.

So my advice for the day: Corned beef is not your toddler's friend.

Movies of 2008

I thought I'd make a list of all the movies I watch in 2008, just for fun... If there was a movie that I was really touched by, it's in bold. Movies that I can't recommend to anyone are crossed out.

• Amazing Grace: Way better than I expected.
• Becoming Jane: Who cares if it's historically accurate? Oh the sweet tension...
  
• Catch and Release: Predictable but it still made me cry.
• Copying Beethoven: Big disappointment.
• Elizabeth, the Golden Age: Didn't finish due to the serious anti-Catholic bias.
• Freedom Writers: Good, predictable, gritty.
• Gone, Baby Gone: Very brutal and vulgar - but unbelievably gripping. Who would ever have thought that Ben Affleck would make such a good director? I had my hand to my throat the whole time... with tears in my eyes.
  
• Goodnight, Mister Tom: Wonderful, surprising, sweet.
• King of Kong: Fascinating documentary. We were totally hooked.
  
• League of Their Own: I can't believe I'd never seen this. I even knew a Rockford Peach.
• Man in the Moon: Reese Witherspoon was fabulous.
• Man Without a Face: Good, more serious than I'd expected.
• Marie Antoinette: Waste of time. Didn't finish.
• Miss Potter: Interesting, but could have been better.
• Nanny Diaries: Just like the book, it was okay.
• Once: Fabulous. Absolutely fabulous. I have the soundtrack going nonstop.
• Sweetland: Lovely. Better than expected.
  
• Ultimate Gift: I liked it a lot, Mister thought it was predictable.
  

Resolutions!!

2008 Resolutions

1. Do at least 40 minutes of exercise 3 times a week. At least. My real goal is M-F, but we'll make the resolution 3 times a week. Since we joined the gym a couple of weeks ago, I've been pretty good and love going. This is the first time in my life I've ever looked forward to exercise. I think the built-in tv in the treadmill is a serious motivator.

2. Spend at least 10 minutes outside everyday. Walking the cart back to the corral does not count. My toddler needs to develop better habits than her inside-lovin' mama!

3. Don't complain about 2008 being dairy free. This is an opportunity to make our whole family healthier! (We have a one-year assignment by the pediatrician, we'll re-evaluate in Nov 2008).

4. Be a better friend. I have a tendency to get stuck in ruts of just staying at home / not doing things with people / not calling friends in other states... and I really want to work on that this year.

5. Have another kid. :) Not pregnant yet, so I need to work on that one if I want to squeeze one into 2008!!

6. Blog everyday during January and see if I get in a good habit... re-evaluate this one at the end of January. I've been crummy lately and the only way to know if I should even keep the blog up and running is to do it a lot and see if I enjoy it!

Okay, off to make cookies for the people that are coming over tonight. Notice how weightloss isn't on the list? #1 and #3 are really combining to have good effects, but hopefully #5 will sneak in there and make my weight go back up!

Last Night

Mister took Monday off of work, so we had a lovely and lazy weekend to ourselves. One reason we didn't do anything was that he was exhausted! I'd finally had it with Peanut's way-too-frequent night wakings (usually about every hour, sometimes I'd get two hours of sleep). For three nights (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), Mister was in charge of all but two of her night wakings. He had to get her back to sleep... I'd feed her once when I went to bed and then one other time.

We think that the dairy issues were causing her to wake up, simply from an uncomfortable belly. And the change that we were able to make in those three nights and by cutting out obvious dairy (still transitioning into cutting out all of the super-hidden-in-everything dairy) was enough that last night she did great! I actually had to wake her up at 10:40 because I'd gone to bed and was laying there waiting for her to wake up, and she didn't, so I did the "pick her up and feed her before she realizes she's even awake" thing. It worked great!

The next feeding, though, was ridiculous - and halfway through it, I realized it was blog fodder.

So I go in and get her at about 1:50. A little earlier than I would have preferred for the other feeding of the night, but I tried to comfort her back to sleep and she just woke up farther. I swear she can smell the milk. So I nursed her. Just as she was right on the edge of falling back into dreamland, she pees all over. And I mean a massive amount. Heat running down my leg.... her clothes are totally soaked. She falls totally asleep, from the relief of it. As I'm sitting there in the dark, with a sopping baby on the Boppy, debating whether or not to wake her up, suddenly she wakes all the way up and is uncomfortable. No kidding!

So I go over to change her, stripping off her pants and mine on the way to the changing table. Suddenly I realize that the long sleeve t over the short sleeved onesie is going to pose a problem. Either I need to take off both shirts to get the wet onesie off (which is going to put a naked baby in the cold house in the middle of the night - that's a recipe for a very long process of falling back to sleep!) or I need to take drastic action. So I pick her back up, carry her into the office/sewing room, where I grab my pinking shears and hack off the bottom of her onesie, and carry Peanut back into her room. I've cut off the bottoms of onesies before to turn them into t-shirts as they don't always fit over cloth diapers, so this wasn't anything new, but I really did a hack job on it!!

In the process, I caught the edge of a cut I have on my finger on something, which tears it way open, and since it was a really deep cut, I suddenly have blood everywhere. Not too helpful.

So I grab a cloth wipe, trying to put pressure on my finger, and put a fresh diaper on her, put fresh pants on her, and go sit back down to see if I can't nurse her back to sleep. Keep in mind that all I am wearing at this stage is a tshirt and fleece socks. And it's COLD in the house! I put the Boppy on my lap, upside down so that the wet part isn't touching her, and then I realize that it's touching me.

I'm half-naked, bleeding profusely from my finger, with a soggy Boppy on my lap, and a happy and contented toddler on top of that. That's blogging fodder for ya!

Thankfully, after I was able to convince her back to sleep, she slept until 6:50, which is an unheard of feat! (okay, okay, she was doing that months ago, but hasn't slept for over four hours in a row in a long time!)

Happy Birthday, Peanut!

You're one year and one week old today. All those people that said life would never be the same? They were so correct! I can't imagine my life without you and your sweet face. You make me crack up so many times a day... and every day, I fall a little more in love with you.

I loved giving birth to you. It was the most intense experience of my life, and I felt completely fulfilled in my femininity and in my humanity. It was natural, and I felt every bit of you pass through me, your gateway into the world. It's been my joy to introduce you to so much of the world already, and the upcoming years will be so much fun as I get to see you grow and learn so much.

Thank you for being you...

My latest "hobby"

Peanut's always been on the small side, which hasn't ever been a concern. But then when we went for her one year checkup yesterday, she hadn't put on an OUNCE in three months. I know that she had, but she lost it when she had a cold and wasn't interested in eating.

Still, though, that's a little disconcerting.

Add that to my "denial" over the last six months about her dairy issues. She'd developed hives around her mouth the two times that she was allowed to suck on a spoon that had some ice cream on it. Yes, there were two times. The first time, we let her suck the ice cream. Hives. Worried parents. Benadryl cream. A little relief. The next time, I was careful to lick all the ice cream off first, but she still got hives. Not as many, but still... So I haven't let her eat anything that has cheese or milk, etc., but I haven't cut it entirely out of my diet yet. I cut out ice cream, yogurt and milk, but am still eating cheese and cooking with butter.

She's not sleeping nearly as well as any of her baby-friends at this age. Poor weight gain? Restless nights? Add those up and it looks like she is affected by even the slight dairy in my diet.

It's time. We're going dairy-free for a year, I think. Still not sure if the Mister is going to join us, but we'll see. It's our new adventure. It pretty much hails the end of my laziness love of prepared food and having Mister order out when I'm tired.

I know scads of moms out there have tried this and succeeded, and they get more sleep at night which allows them to keep up with all the extra work during the day. Who knows, maybe I'll even lose those last tough postpartum pounds!

wfmw - what to get at sonic??

This may seem waaaay weird to some of you Southern Gals who have become accustomed to a Sonic on every corner... but I am thrilled about the prospect of a Sonic being built just a couple of miles from my blogging location!

I've experienced the goodness of Sonic drinks on three occasions, but I have to say that once I tried the Strawberry Limeade, I was in luv. Fizzy, sweet, tangy, fresh, with little ol' chunks of strawberry shooting up the straw periodically to remind me that this was a HEALTHY drink, yup... I'm in luv.

But I don't want to get in a comfort zone and miss out on Sonic's other goodies. So I'm turning to you, Oh Experienced Sonic Aficionados, and asking what I should order the next time I'm there?