Quick Easy Meals + Happy Babies = Success

Parents of littles know the title of this post is not a joking matter.
If dinner is being made and the babies are happy SIMULTANEOUSLY, that is a serious success all around. Maybe some of you have children who don't get cranky at 5:00, but that is prime whiny time over at our house and it also happens to be dinner-making time. Survival was the name of the game for a couple months after Emma was born. Meaning, burgers, tacos, taco salad, grilled cheese, spaghetti, etc... #eatinglikea5yearold

But, I'm trying to get back into cooking more "real" food.

Easy is still a must. No gourmet cooking over here. But we've upgraded from spaghetti to...

1. Pork lettuce wraps. I usually serve steamed broccoli and fruit on the side.

2. We bought a cheap teeny tiny gas grill & I LOVE having it! Ben often grills when he gets home. 5-10 minutes of prep for me (marinade/ seasoning) and 5-10 minutes of grilling and out comes something tasty. I've been experimenting with these marinade ideas. Seriously, I do this 2 or 3 times a week. Easy, healthy, fun.

3. Pesto. I've been wanting to attempt growing basil for a while. I couldn't stand to pay $3 per package for the fresh stuff at the store anymore. I am no gardener, but this wasn't that hard.
Pot + dirt + basil plant = $10.
Fresh basil all year long? Priceless.
Okay, not priceless. But it's much cheaper, and more convenient. Step out to back porch, pick a few basil leaves, throw in food processor with walnuts (cheaper than pine nuts), parmesan, garlic, and olive oil. Voila!
We like this skinny chicken pesto bake. I have Ben grill the chicken so that it's halfway cooked, then I put it in a baking dish, add the pesto, mozzarella, and tomato & put it in oven for 10 minutes (ish) at 375 (ish). It's very forgiving.
I also do the following copy-cat recipe of Noodles & Company's Pesto Cavatappi.
Pasta + homemade pesto + grilled chicken seasoned with salt and pepper + sauteed mushrooms and tomatoes. Top with shredded parmesan. I could eat that every day.
But I don't.
But I want to.

I do like to cook. [Side note: My mom was in town for a few days. One evening during meal-prep time, she took Addie outside to play, and Emma was sleeping. I was making dinner. And it was silent. And then the heavens opened, and angels began singing the Hallelujah chorus. Okay, that part was in my head. But, I had forgotten how much I like to cook until I was by myself and it was silent. I wouldn't trade in my chaotic children-filled evenings for silence every night, but for one night, it was really nice. God's grace to me in the mundane. Anyway, I turned on some great music, and chopped, stirred, and sauteed away. It was so fun.]

On most days, though it's the aforementioned slightly chaotic, child-filled meal prep time. We try to avoid meltdowns at this happy hour of sorts with the following strategies...

Addie helps me "wash" dishes. She would play at the sink all day long if I let her. So this is our #1 go-to.

Sometimes we put on a movie. (Which Addie refers to as "vee-vee.") 

These reusable stickers are super fun. It's from this Melissa and Doug sticker pad. It was an impulse buy when she first was into stickers - little did I know what a hit it would be. There are 5 animal habitat pages (farm, jungle, dessert, etc...) and then 5 matching sticker sheets. The stickers are like window clings so you can peel them and move them repeatedly. I actually like it better than stickers, not only because she can use them over and over, but also because they're easier for her to peel by herself. She can't quite get stickers off a sticker sheet yet. They end up all over our house. Or all over Emma. But as those of you with toddlers know, anything they can do by themselves for longer than 2 minutes is a WIN! 

As far as Emma goes, she is basically either eating, sleeping, crying, or swinging during this hour. She also enjoys being read to by her big sister ;)

Right now, Ben gets home around 6. If I'm really on it, we eat right when he gets home. This seems to happen once every 10 days. Most days, we eat around 6:30. So, I try to feed Emma at 4 ish and then give her a 'snack' either right before I start meal prep around 5:/5:15, or right after I finish and before Ben gets home around 5:55/6. If she's full, she's generally happy. If she's super crabby, I swaddle her up, lay her down, and tolerate the background music titled, "baby cries herself to sleep."

Some day, perhaps, I will cook in silence every day.
Perhaps I'll sip wine and try new, gourmet recipes.
I might think back on these somewhat chaotic evenings
evenings that were full of crying and whining and a child clinging to my legs.
but also full of singing & laughing
evenings with my kitchen helper who loved to stir and wash.
evenings where we turned whiny-leg-clinging into a sweet snuggly leg-hugging game.
And I might miss them.

(or not. i might happily sip my wine in silence, and eat a gourmet dinner with my husband and enjoy adult conversation. who knows!?)

changed

This is a GREAT story.
Well worth 18 minutes of your time.
This is the power of Jesus to change a life.
The power of Jesus to transform a marriage.

a glimpse at a conversation with my toddler

I was going to attempt this brief and interrupted blogging style... where I would just write thoughts as they came instead of sitting down to write blog posts novels. But it's not really working. 

Because, well, I have a toddler.

Don't get me wrong. 

I LOVE our toddler. She is sweet, curious, funny, feisty, a very loving big sister, and she has a killer run. (If you've seen it, you know what I mean.) 

I love her to the moon and back. [Bonus points if you can name that book.] 

But, in this current season, my thoughts are incomplete. And I thought that "incomplete" would be a fun and new way to blog - brief tidbits here and there. Little thoughts to share. Most of the time, though, I only ever get through half a thought. Just one little itty bitty glimpse of a thought. 

Like... wow the way that lady so kindly approached... [mama, mama, emma, emma? walk walk, crash.] That's Addie talking to me mid-thought.

So we talk about all those things. 

Me: Yes, mama is drinking coffee.

Addie: cah-fee, cah-fee. mama's. hot. hot. addieeee? nooooo. no. no. silly.

Me: Yes, coffee is not for Addie. Too hot. Just for mommy. 

Addie: baby? emma? nooooo. (She likes to say "no" in a drawn out teasing voice when she's joking. It's pretty cute.) 

Me: Right. Not for baby or emma. Just mommy. 

Addie: books? read, read, read. bus bus bus. (this means she wants to read the bus book.) 

Me: okay, go find it and I'll read it to you. 

She runs off. 

In my head, I should write about the sweet enthusiasm she has for reading and how I hope... 

[BUSSSSSSSSSSSSS.] 

She runs back with the book in hand & thought vanishes into thin air. Now I'm thinking about how we are going to read/sing "The Wheels on the Bus" for the 1,028,384th time. She has loved this book for months. 

Me: Yay, you found it! Let's read the bus book. 

Addie: Addie addie addie. 

Me: Okay, Addie read it to mommy. 

Addie: bus bus bus. nah nah. bus. emma? ride? ride ride ride. bus bus bus. 

[If you have a toddler, you understand that everything is repeated at least twice, often 3 + times at the age of 19 months.]  

Let's just say, my toddler is... chatty. 

I don't know where she gets it from. Probably her dad. [cough cough.]

So this is most of our day. I don't entertain her all day by any means, but she talks all day. To me, to Emma, to herself, to her baby. Really, I don't mind. I mean, I crave silence more than I ever have, but I love to hear her learning and articulating. I love that she can communicate her thoughts. I almost always understand her. It eliminates minimizes the whining. 

And so, here I am. 

Not many complete thoughts. And not as many moments to write the complete (or incomplete) ones as I'd hoped for. Still working on making time. 

Because I do love writing.

And I love sharing.

And I am so so so encouraged and tickled and inwardly blushing when someone says, "I read your blog." 

Yippee! I love that! 

I love that someone else could find any sort of connection or encouragement from something going on in our little corner of the internet. 

I love to record our lives so that one day I can remember what the Lord has done for us.

So, keep checking back. Don't give up on me. We'll be here.  

2 months already????

Since Emma is 2 months old {where did the time go?!}, it seemed fitting to write her birth story. Finally. If there can be opposites when it comes to birth, Addie and Emma's births were opposite. 
Agonizing (Addie's birth) and bliss (Emma's birth) are the two words that come to mind.

Once upon a time, I scheduled an induction for June 4, two days before Emma's due date. The reasons for picking June 4 were half logistical and half get-this-baby-outta-me. To keep it "PG," I'll just say my body was "ready" by about 37 weeks. Addie came on her own 10 days early, so I had false hope Emma would come early too. But by 39 she still wasn't here. We picked June 4 because my doctor was going out of town June 5 and my parents were arriving June 7. I was a little nervous to do an induction, but the doctor was pretty sure it wouldn't take much to get labor going. 

It is a very weird feeling to wake up one morning and know you're going to meet your baby that day. We were supposed to be at the hospital at 7. Ben got up super early to run with David. I woke up at 5:45, had a bite to eat, journaled and prayed a little, showered, and packed a couple last minute things. We went to the hospital at 7 am, answered what seemed like a million questions until 8:00. 

whew. glad i'm not carrying her around like that anymore!!! 

note to first-time preggo mommas: this is not what it looks like when you spontaneously go into labor. been there, done that, no photos. but when you wake up & go to the hospital for an induction, you are more likely to be beaming when you arrive :) 

At 8:45, our doctor arrived and broke my water. Ben and I walked around for an hour to see if breaking the water would kick start labor, but it didn't. 
They started the pitocin at 9:45. The doctor's process is to increase the amount by 2mL every 30 minutes until I'm in "active labor" (contracting regularly on my own, at 7 cm). The nurse explained that at any point, I can choose not to "up" the pitocin and just let my body do the rest if I want to proceed naturally. 
We started at 2 mL. Walked around a lot.  
Up to 4. Walked more. I could feel my body getting more amped up, and it felt exciting. We were going to meet Emma today. I debated progressing naturally (without more pitocin) the rest of the way. But we figured, go big or go home. Why not speed it up. So...
Up to 6. 
I was pretty sure I wanted an epidural with this one. I had labored too long with Addie without one. Plus it's supposed to be even harder (if that's possible) on pitocin. Knowing it would be about an hour from the time I requested it to when I got it, I requested the epidural once the pitocin was at 6, even though the pain was still manageable. The contractions were getting closer and stronger, so we stopped adding pitocin because I didn't want to be in agony for the next hour before the epidural. I jumped in the tub while waiting for the rest of the IV fluid to drip (necessary before epidural) & then waiting on the anesthesiologist. The contractions got HARD. 
The epidural went in around 11 or 12. I think.
It took well, and I was about 8 cm. They stopped the pitocin all together. 
Even with the epidural, I could feel immense pressure with every contraction. This was really different from Addie, because Addie wasn't in the right position until the last second. 
After about 30 minutes, the pressure went from only-with-contractions to constant. I couldn't not push. 
20 minutes later, she was out. 

Honestly, it was amazing in a lot of ways. It was a totally different experience from Addie's birth {which I am just realizing I never blogged about... maybe another day.} 
One thing I didn't like was  - it was a weird anticipation once they started the pitocin, but not knowing when things were going to pick up. Just walking around, with an IV in (yuck), waiting for contractions to start. Waiting for the 'real thing.' But at the end of it all, sweet Emma was born, and we were again, in love.  

at one month... 

6 weeks - first smiles 

7 weeks 

8 weeks 

and today. 

at 2 months old, she's smiley, relaxed, and pretty quiet. She cries to go to sleep, but doesn't make much noise throughout the day. Maybe she'll be introverted?? She loves being talked to and sung to though. And she seems to like her big sister. 

i'm so glad this little peanut was born 2 months ago.