Thursday Things: 3 Products We Regularly Used for Jack (0-3 Months)

Every time I try to make Granola, I burn it. every.time.

Cloth diapers really are saving us a boat load of money. Jack is 3 months old and we have only spent $100 on disposable diapers. Woo-hoo.

My nephew should enter the world sometime in the next 24 hours. Jack will have a little boy cousin who is 3 months younger than him. We can't wait to meet Levi.

I am not cooking as much as I used to, but I still manage to knock out 3 meals a week – we are eating more leftovers these days. 

I am almost done knitting Jack's baby blanket. Unfortunately Walmart is out of my yarn and I only need 1 ball of yarn to finish. Not sure what I will do if they are no longer selling said yarn...

After 3 months of being a mom, my top three products for baby are:

• The Fisher-Price Rock 'N Play Newborn Sleeper – Jack is still sleeping in our bedroom and this is perfect for night time as well as naps.
• My Kindle Fire – it plays Pandora (we like the Lullabye and Family Folk Song Stations) and it is great for reading books or perusing the internet when I am nursing Jack.
• An elastic hair band for my wrist. This is how I track what side to nurse Jack on... pretty high tech :) I just move the elastic band back and forth to each wrist. It is the easiest way for me to keep track (especially in the middle of the night when I am tired). If you are into techie things, I have heard good things about the Baby Connect ap for iPhone.

A typical day: Jack and Sophie napping on the couch while I work on freelance projects.

2012 Book 6: Mockingjay

I finally wrapped up The Hunger Games trilogy. I stayed up until midnight to finish Mockingjay {this was tough since I had to get up to feed Jack shortly after going to sleep... such is life with an infant}.

Overall I really enjoyed the trilogy. My first impressions are that The Hunger Games was my favorite book of the three. Mockingjay was a bit intense and I feel like the movie version of this book will be incredibly gory... not sure that I will be able to watch it.

I was a bit disappointed in the deaths of certain characters {don't want to spoil it for those of you who haven't read the trilogy yet}, but believe they were necessary to the plot. Also I wish that the characters of Coin and Boggs were more developed. I kind of felt like I was just thrown into book 3 without much set up. Since I had waited almost a month between reading Catching Fire and Mockingjay, there were a few times that my tired mommy brain couldn't figure out what was going on from the previous storyline.

I really liked the ending and believed that Katness chose the right boy for her {again, I don't want to spoil it}.

Excerpts from the book: 

I begin to fully understand the lengths to which people have gone to protect me. What I mean to the rebels. My ongoing struggle against the Capitol, which has so often felt like a solitary journey, has not been undertaken alone. I have had thousands upon thousands of people from the districts at my side. I was their Mockingjay long before I accepted the role.

 

I’m sick of people lying to me for my own good. Because really it’s mostly for their own good.

“That’s why I killed Cato…and he killed Thresh…and he killed Clove…and she tried to kill me. It just goes around and around, and who wins? Not us. Not the districts. Always the Capitol. But I’m tired of being a piece in their Games.”

 

Am I really that cold and calculating? Gale didn’t say, “Katniss will pick whoever it will break her heart to give up,” or even “whoever she can’t live without.” Those would have implied I was motivated by a kind of passion. But my best friend predicts I will choose the person who I think I “can’t survive without.”

What I need to survive is not -----'s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only ----- can give me that.

Comfort Food: Tuna, Pasta and Cheese Gratin

Also known as Tuna Noodle Casserole.

I am a big fan of this kind of casserole, but since I rarely cook the same thing twice, I have long since lost my favorite version of this recipe. I was really excited to come across a close enough version from Elizabeth's Edible Experience {she adapted her version of the casserole from a William Sonoma recipe.

I don't know what makes me love this casserole so much. I think that it reminds me of Wilderness Trek...

Tuna, Pasta and Cheese Gratin
Adapted from Elizabeth's Edible Experience

Ingredients

• 1lb whole wheat rigatoni pasta
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 6 tbs (3/4 stick) unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 tsp pepper
• ground nutmeg, to taste
• 8 oz tuna, packed in sunflower oil
• 1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400°F. Butter a 2-quart baking dish.

Bring a large pot three-fourths full of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook according to the package. Drain and transfer to a bowl and set aside.

In a saucepan over medium heat, saute onion and celery in olive oil. Set aside. 

Melt 4 tbs of butter. Add the flour, stirring until fully incorporated, about 3 minutes; do not allow to brown.

Slowly add the milk and cream, whisking constantly.

Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally until smooth and thickened, about 5 minutes. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Add the sauce to the macaroni and mix well.

Fold in the tuna, onions, celery and cheese.

Transfer to the prepared baking dish.

Top with the bread crumbs. Finally, cut the remaining 2 tbs of butter into bits and use to dot the top of the gratin.

Bake until bubbly and golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes.

I would walk 500 miles...

Remember that challenge I wrote about last month? The one where I said I would *attempt* to walk/run/hike/paddle/swim 500 miles this year? Yeah, well I am off to a rather slow start.

Miserable January weather. An infant at home. Living in the country with nowhere close by to run. A bad cold. All have conspired against me.

I still am going to work towards this goal, but right now, my YTD mileage is a piddly 4.5 miles. Sad. At least I managed to squeeze in a few Cardio Kickboxing and Zumba classes last month. Hopefully February will see me making better headway towards this goal of mine.

In other news, I am already down to my pre-baby weight. So at least I have that going for me.

As for the other goals... I haven't made any headway on them either. Some days I think I am doing good to take a shower and put real clothes on {especially this past week while Jack and I have been sick}.

Firsts

Some firsts are good. Like your first bath or your first ride on a four wheeler. Other firsts are not so fun. Like getting your first tooth or getting sick for the first time.

Jack is currently experiencing his first bout of sickness. Definitely not fun. For him or me. It doesn't help that I am also sick {and probably passed it along to him}.

Since both of us appear to have colds – clear snot and no fevers. I have been letting Jack ride it out. Yesterday {day 3} his little cough worsened so I called our PED and made an appointment to have him looked at. Her first concern was that RSV is going around and she wanted to have labs run on him to make sure the little rattle in his chest wasn't something worse than the common cold.

We live in a small town. Thankfully we have a PED we really love. However, to get labs run, she had to send us to the hospital. 

The hospital, people!!!

It felt so weird to drive over and "admit" my little one to a hospital. The admissions lady asked me if I would be okay with people calling on Jack while he was there... cue silence...  

"I thought I was just here for labs... he isn't stay here, right???"

Thankfully this question was just routine and she put my fears to rest {for then} and sent me upstairs to a nurses station.

I got to the nurse's station, looked around and asked if this is where I go to get lab work done. It was. The nurse proceeded to put us in a hospital room {granted there was no bed, but it was still weird}.

Then I sat there while she went to get another nurse who could help "hold Jack down." While she was gone I started to get nervous. No one had mentioned what they would be doing to him. In my mind I started thinking about lab work I have had done and it generally involves drawing blood. I was worried for my little boy – especially because even if he did have RSV, unless it got really bad, there would be nothing that we could do for him...

So I held Jack and talked to him while we waited. Finally another nurse came in and had me hold Jack while she ran the test. Thankfully it only involved shooting saline up his nose and sucking it out. He did not like this one little bit, but it probably helped to clear his sinuses out. When they were done I nursed him and then we headed home.

Later that day our PED's office called with the lab results. They were negative. They called again this morning to see how he was doing. He slept well last night, but that cough is still bothering him. I will continue to keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't get any worse.

Just another small town experience. Hopefully we won't be going to the hospital "for real" any time soon ever.

2012 Book 5: The Postmistress

Another war story for the year. The Postmistress by Sarah Blake is about a wife who is waiting at home for her husband to come back from war and the letter that is never delivered to her.

The start of this book felt a bit erratic to me, but I am glad I finished it. I think I need a break from war stories.

Excerpts from the book:

All there was was the story she had told, not what happened around the edges.

Life seemed to her like a city hotel with many floors. She did not like to think of all the hallways she'd never seen, nor all the hallways that she might have walked along if she had gotten off at a different floor. She didn't like to think that there was more than one hallway than the one she was in...

When we know there are people in need, right now, in the same breath as what we are breathing, we cannot look away. It is no abstract. We have to go. That is humanity. The whole thing relies on it. Human beings do not look away.

One day someone you saw ever day was there and the next he was not. This was the only way Frankie had to report the Blitz.

...The Jews were being interned because they were Jews, and were being denied refuge on the basis of being Jews.

...he'd come to understand that each one of us was alive, intensely alive, right until the instant of death. And then each of us was gone. There could be no substitutions.

When the Germans come they will simply come, and there won't be an announcement.

We can't change what is coming. Something is always coming.

2012 Book 4: Shanghai Girls

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See is a historical novel about two sisters who end up immigrating from China to America in the 1930's. It is a glimpse into what it would have been like to be an immigrant of Asiatic descent during a difficult period. 

Ultimately it is the story of two sisters who love each other and support one another through some very difficult times in their lives. They deal with jealousy and betrayal as well as an undying loyalty to one another. It is a good read, though difficult at times.

Excerpts from the book:

"An educated woman is a worthless woman." – Confucius

We may look and act modern in many ways, but we can't escape what we are: obedient Chinese daughters.

I thought I was modern. I thought I had a choice. I thought I was nothing like my mother. But my father's gamblings has swept all that away. I am to be sold – traded like so many girls before me – to help my family. I feel so trapped and so helpless that I can hardly breathe.

In Shanghai, life flows like an endlessly serene river for the wealthy, the lucky, the fortunate. For those with bad fates, the smell of desperation is as strong as a rotting corpse.

Maybe we are all like that with our mothers. They seem ordinary until one day they are extraordinary.

"There is no catastrophe except death; one cannot be poorer than a beggar."

So often we're told that women's stories are unimportant. After all, what does it matter what happens in the main room, in the kitchen, or in the bedroom? Who cares about the relationships between mother, daughter, and sister? ...We're told that men are strong and brave, but I think women know how to endure, accept defeat, and bear physical, and mental agony much better than men.