Week Twelve: Water Ring Sling

This week has been chaos. CHAOS I tell you!

Luckily I did find time to try my hand at a DIY project that I wanted to do before we left for Florida. A water ring sling! 

I borrowed a mesh water ring sling last summer when O was just teeny and I went to the water park with my mom and crew. It was lovely, secure, and snuggley. It was also way too long for me, and not mine.

So, a few weeks ago I decided I'd try my hand at sewing myself a water ring sling, and what better deadline to give myself than before our trip to Florida? Well, in hindsight I can think of about a million better deadlines. Because, while this was a super easy project, it took time that I didn't really have this week to do it.

In any event, I stuck to my silly self-imposed deadline and made the carrier. It was so easy. I had a few hiccups {like the fabric I ordered online not being quite what I was thinking it would be} but over all it all worked out and only took about 30 minutes or so to do! 

Easy accordion fold. 

If I ever venture into the sling making world again, I will definitely try to do a fancier shoulder so it spreads out a little better.

Luckily, my mom and crew were in town this weekend and stayed at a hotel, so O and I got to test out the sling ahead of vacation. I think it is safe to say he loved it. He loved everything about the pool, including the salt water that he kept licking off his hands {gross}! Gulf of Mexico, here we come!

Trial run!

*If you're thinking of making a sling for yourself make sure you buy quality rings from slingrings.com. Rings from the fabric store are not intended for this purpose and can break.*

Week Eleven: Wine Tasting

This weekend, thanks to Living Social, I visited Northern Vineyards in Stillwater for a wine tasting. I've been to this place before and I knew I enjoyed their wines, so I was quite excited. Nothing like an expiring Living Social deal to bring you together with friends you should really hang out with more often! 

Before we went, I knew I would want to blog about it. I also knew that my phone was FULL, so I spent time uploading my pictures to 2 computers and the external hard drive {Overkill? No. Because if I lost all those pictures and videos of my little buddy I would cry for days} With a freshly emptied phone I was ready to take all kinds of artsy pictures at the tasting to add to the blog. 

And then I took zero pictures. Haha, seriously. Not one of our group, not one of the wine, not one of the storefront. None. Maybe I was having way too much fun to even think about it? It was a lot of fun, but seriously. No pictures? Get your head in the game, me! 

Luckily my pal Reilly took this photo of the tasting menu we had for the day. I had so many favorites! It was hard to not just just buy a bottle of each. 

Photo by the lovely Reilly K.

It was crazy busy in there, which I thought at first could be because everyone had an expiring Living Social deal. But I came to find out that it was actually a "Spring into Wine" event that they were hosting. Definitely want to get on that train next year! They had a tasting menu for the event, as well as dessert pairings. Then there are 4 other local wineries that had similar things going on that you could visit as a part of the package deal.

Yum x3

Here are some of the wines I have from Northern Vineyards. I'm especially excited to open the St. Pepin. It reminded me of summer when I tasted it, so I think I will save it for some warm weather. If that ever happens. 

Have you been to a wine tasting? Where did you go, did you love it, and should I go too??

:)

-H

Accidentally Crunchy: Adventures in Baby Led Weaning

I often wonder what our parenting style would be like without the internet. Without all the mommy blogs and the forums and baby WebMD.

Without the internet I almost surely wouldn't have known that skipping purées was an option. I wouldn't have known that we should probably wait until 6 months to feed solid foods. There are probably a million things that would be different in our parenting life if Google wasn't always within arm's reach. 

When I was on maternity leave I had a lot of time to read on my phone while O was nursing. {gasp! I didn't give him my undivided attention, gazing into his eyes while he ate!} One thing I kept seeing over and over was "BLW". Over the next few months I read blogs and Gil Rapley's book about this "BLW" or "baby led weaning" idea and I was sold.

Mike was 100% on board as well, and we decided we were going to do it at home even if daycare insisted on feeding him purées. As it turns out, daycare was 100% on board too. Our pediatrician is very hands off in parenting matters which I enjoy and his only input on O starting solids was to "try to wait until 6 months unless you think he is ready, don't worry about allergies unless you have a family history of them, and no honey."

Since it all seemed to be falling into place I assumed it was surely meant to be the way we introduced solids to O. 

My plan was to wait until 6 months, but about 3 or 4 weeks shy of that milestone O took matters into his own hands. I was eating fresh-from-the-garden cantaloupe {drool} with a fork while holding him on my hip. He reached out, plucked the fruit off my fork, and shoved it in his mouth and started gnawing on it all in one fell swoop.

I was shocked! My baby knew how to eat! I let him go to town on it for a little bit and then took it away. I wasn't quite ready to begin this adventure yet.

Fast forward another week or so, and he did the same thing with a cherry tomato. Took a chunk out of it as if he were eating an apple. I'll never forget his chubby little hand holding on to that tomato, squashing it to death, as he sucked and gnawed on it happily. Shortly after this little flavor experiment we decided it was time to "officially' start feeding him real food.

We started with steamed sweet potato, avocado, banana, steamed carrots, and peeled apple wedges {not all at once- those were just the first few}. Since we don't have any food allergies in the immediate family we didn't wait days between introducing new foods. It has been great to just give him some of what we are eating most nights. When we are eating like crap I do make him something else. He is an adventurous eater and loves pretty much everything we have offered him. Bananas and avocados took several times before he enjoyed them. O even likes food that I don't! When we get Chicken in Black Bean Sauce from our favorite Chinese place Owen happily eats all the mushrooms I pick out {because mushrooms are gross}. We are a good team.

Early adventures
{Clockwise from top left: peeled apple slice, steamed carrots, broccolini at a restaurant, and banana}

I watched a lot of videos on YouTube and blogs of babies gagging while doing BLW. It helped a lot. Because without seeing them, I would have absolutely mistaken gagging for choking and panicked. Here is a video of him gagging from about mid-October {O was about 6 months exactly}. The video cuts off abruptly but I promise he was fine- my phone just ran out of storage and cut the video {story of my life--I need a bigger phone next time}. What I've learned is that there is usually no need to stick your fingers in their mouth to fish out something {and risk shoving it further in}-- they work it to the front and spit it out on their own.

Here is a video of his early eating skills {or lack thereof}. He consumed very little for the first several weeks, and that's just fine. His doc said we don't need to worry about how much he is consuming until he is one as long as he is still getting all the breast milk he needs. I should also mention we skipped rice cereal, and his doc was on board with that, too.We always fed him people food after he had nursed, since he was still getting his nutrition from that and the people food was just an extra bonus.

Now that he is an almost 11-month-old and a pro at eating, he will reach into his mouth, grab food, and remove it if he took too big of a bite. Which, might I add, is often. I have modified the BLW approach of big, easy to grab chunks of food into littler pieces that I put on his tray throughout the meal. If I put big chunks he shoves the whole thing in his mouth like the child has never eaten in his life. {I think maybe he has seen me dive into a burrito bowl at Chipotle one too many times} If I put lots of small chunks on his tray at once he scoops them all up and shoves them into his mouth at once. I am not super concerned with him choking at this point, but man is it ever annoying to tell him to slow down {and have him not understand} 500 times each meal.

Here is a video from 9 or 10 months old where O displays his slight enjoyment of food. His favorites seem to change from week to week, but his enthusiasm surely doesn't.

It seems that the way we feed O changes little by little every day. Sometimes I feed him with a spoon if it is something super messy, and sometimes he uses the spoon I load up for him. Right around when O turned 10 months he started to scoop food from a bowl with his spoon and eat it all by himself! He is still working on that skill, but he is getting it. It is exciting and crazy how much he has learned and how much is yet to come!

I don't know that BLW is an especially "crunchy" approach to feeding, but it is definitely off the beaten path, so I'm including it in my Accidentally Crunchy series. :)

This got to be a crazy long blog so thanks for sticking with me till the end. :)

-H

Week Ten: Mama/baby date

As this past week drew to a close, I reflected on what I had decided was a failure. I didn't do anything all that significant for my *finding*fifty*two* project. I was so wrapped up in work this week that I didn't even have time to think about planning anything.

But then it dawned on me that I did do something awesome this week! I forgot all about it, since this was quite possibly the longest week to have ever existed and all the fun happened on Monday.

Since we were without daycare on Monday-Wednesday this week I took Monday off from work {and Mike took Tuesday and Wednesday off- so jealous}. On our Monday off together Owen and I had a mama/baby date day and it was lovely!

We started the day off in our pajamas. I drank coffee and we played with all the toys downstairs. And the cat's toys. And the stairs. And the cat. And the toys again. And the tiny bits of fuzz in the carpet. It was quite the morning.

My poor teething buddy can't even smile without those darn fingers in his mouth lately!

I was in the middle of getting O dressed for the day when he demanded a quick nursing sesh. We plopped down on the couch and he fell asleep after he finished eating. Part of me wanted to get up and get dressed and do something productive, but instead I reminded myself that this was our day together and he will only be this little once. He napped for an hour snuggled into me and it was wonderful.

All the snuggles.

Then we went to the MOA for a lunch date at Noodles and a trip to the aquarium before meeting up with Reilly and baby Lia for some shopping. {I was on a hunt for rain boots that will fit my little peanut guy. He wears a 3, and I figured a 4 would be good for boots since he could wear thick socks now and then as it warms up he will have grown a bit. They don't exist in real life- only on the internets. 6pm.com to the rescue!} We all had a great time chatting {although Lia slept the entire time} and wandering the MOA together.

O had a great time shoving all my Pasta Fresca with feta and Parmesan-crusted chicken into his face. We are getting dangerously close to needing to order two meals when the two of us go to Noodles! He had an even better time watching the rays at the aquarium swim by. He also enjoyed all the other kids we encountered- perhaps even more than any of the sea creatures at the aquarium.

A rare moment with no food in his mouth. 

Saying hi.

Now that I retell the fun we had I feel so bad I almost forgot it happened! Quite the reminder to slow down, take a breath, and reflect every once in a while.

-H

Week Nine: Freezer Upgrade

For Christmas, we asked for money to put towards a freezer. Mike and I have wanted to get a freezer to put in the furnace room since we moved into this house, but it always seems to fall to the bottom of the to-buy list. For Christmas, we got the money!

So we bought......nothing. We ended up putting the cash into our savings account because we just couldn't pull the trigger on a freezer. We started to wonder if we would get enough use out of it now that my massive breast milk stockpile in our regular freezer is dwindling.

Then, in a serendipitous turn of events, my great great uncle Richard sold his cabin. When my grandparents were there helping him clear it out, they happened upon an old freezer that still works! Since I'm obviously their favorite grandchild {or at least their favorite grandchild that is in the market for a freezer} they grabbed it for me AND delivered it to my house!

So now I have a freezer sitting in the middle of my basement, waiting to be fit into the overcrowded furnace room {didn't really think that part through}. The past few nights I've been really admiring how ugly it is. And it doesn't have to be pretty, I mean, it's an appliance we're going to keep in the furnace room with the spiders and the kitty litter. But my crafty brain switched on and I had an idea.

In a perfect world, I would have an upright freezer. But here in reality, where I have a free chest freezer, that just isn't the case. I wanted to avoid the chest style freezer because I didn't want to lose things buried under other stuff and forget what we even have in there.

So, that's where my crafty brain took over. I decided that I simply don't have enough chalk board in my life. {I've told you guys before that I love a good bandwagon, right?} I was recently reminded of this when my friend Dawn posted on her blog about an awesome kitchen island makeover. Hint: it involved chalk board.

So I decided it would be awesome to paint the entire lid of the chest freezer with chalkboard paint! Not only will I get my chalk board fix and have some fun, but I'll also be able to keep track of what's in the freezer.

We are still deciding if we will have some sort of grid with check marks to indicate how much of each item we have, a simple list, or even a list/diagram combo just for fun.

In any event, it was an easy DIY and I think it will be wonderfully useful as well!

Here's how it went:

Luckily I didn't need to prime it. I did two coats and then after it dried over night I rubbed chalk on and erased it. Martha Stewart told me to. 

Finished Product! 

Pretty fun, right? I think it will be super useful, too! Getting out the chalkboard paint has also inspired another project that I might have to complete in the next couple weeks, so stay tuned for that. :)

-H