Eat, Pray, Love. And Work.: children

It is 1 AM and I am still awake. Why? Oh, because I want my two year-old, who barely understands Valentine's Day, to have something really cool and handmade to give to her friends at church. Chances are that, while these are non-edible, the kids will eat them; no worries, I spent the extra 20 cents and picked up the non-toxic crayons for this DIY heart-shaped crayon project.

Here's a quick tutorial for heart-shaped crayons...

Unwrap lots of crayons. I used five crayons for each heart.

Preheat your oven to 275.

Break your crayons into 3-4 pieces and fill silicone heart-shaped baking cups.

Bake in the oven at 275 for 10-12 minutes.

Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.

Once crayons have cooled completely, pop them out of the baking cups, admire your work and go to bed.

And the summary....

Eat, Love: Homemade Baby Food

It all started with mommy guilt. When Lily got ready for solid foods I had just gone back to work part time. Somehow, in my working mom insanity I decided that my child would feel more loved if her baby food was made from fresh foods rather than mass produced and served in a jar. Believe me, nearly two years later I fully realize just how ridiculous that sounds. Honestly, I knew it sounded ridiculous at the time. Instead of saying, "I am making my daughter's baby food because I feel guilty for working" I would say, "I've been doing some reading and I have decided to make Lily's baby food so I can avoid all the preservatives, ensure the food she is eating is fresh and save money."

In the end, making Lily's baby food did save money. One dollar buys a pound of green beans, which then becomes 16-1oz. servings of baby food. Two dollars worth of sweet potatoes made pounds of baby food! We also bypassed the preservatives and, at this point in her life she loves fresh fruits and veggies. Also, after reading labels I found that many of the baby foods at the store were not as nutritious as the high fiber, vitamin-rich foods I was making at home. The homemade food also made us more more comfortable with giving Lily the (nutritious) foods we were eating and helped her enjoy herbs and spices we would not find in the big name baby foods. Oh, and it worked wonders on the mommy guilt.

The surprising part? It was not as time consuming as I had anticipated. I would cook 4-5 pounds of sweet potatoes in the crock pot while I was at work during the day, then puree them and have them in the freezer. The actual time I spent preparing the sweet potatoes amounted to about 15 minutes. Halved peaches and a pyrex dish with a little water perfectly prepared peaches for baby food prep. Purees freeze very well in ice trays, and each cube in the tray is about 1 oz. When the purees have frozen, you can pop them out and store them in freezer bags labeled with each type of food. They thaw easily in the microwave and can be stored in the freezer for several months.

There are lots of cool baby food gadgets on the market, but you can prepare homemade baby food with just a few items that can be found in most any household. Once the food is cooked in a way that is appropriate for that food, you only need a blender to puree the food, ice trays to freeze the food and freezer bags to store the food. If you are like me and preparing food for the people you love is equivalent to actually telling them you love them, then preparing homemade foods for your baby will be totally fulfilling. Feel free to post any questions in the comments section. Also, check out http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com for great health guidelines, food recommendations by age, recipes and more!

Friday, February 3, 2012

Pray: Teaching our Children

Overwhelming. Huge responsibility. Must not fail. I remember the day Doug and I began discussing bringing a child into this world. We felt excitement, enthusiasm, anticipation and joy as we imagined what our child would be like. The awesome responsibility of parenting began weighing heavily on us from that very moment. How will we teach our child to let her light shine?

Every parent has grand and wonderful plans for their child. We all want the best for them and no matter how blessed our lives have been, we want even more for our children. I know for us, we want Lily to find things she is passionate about and to pursue them with everything she has. For the most part, we will not choose her passions. She may love music or sports or art. She may be an attorney or a teacher or a chef. Only time will tell. Some things, however, are so much more important than her choice to be a pitcher or a pianist or even president. No matter what she chooses for her hobbies or her profession, we want her to be Godly.

I often wonder how we are doing in instilling our spiritual and moral values in our child. My heart sings when I hear her singing "I Like to go to Church" or imitating her Bible class teacher as she lines up her cars and counts to see how many cars came to church. I am encouraged when she tells the checker at Target "tank you." Then I remember that she is 2, and that we have so much work to do to help shape the person she will become.

I was recently reading an article on Dr. Sears' site about raising a moral child. More than once in the article, he referenced a window of opportunity in the first six years of a child's life. In this window of opportunity, children unquestionably accept the virtues displayed in the lives of their parents. We have six years to shape the hearts, minds and souls of our children and then our influence begins to wane. Six years. The awesome responsibility of parenting becomes heavier and heavier.

The Bible (as usual) provides great insight. In Deuteronomy 6:4-9 we read the following:

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
"And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."

We must immerse our families in the love of God. We must immerse our families in loving God. We must do whatever it takes. In order to have children who love God with all their hearts, souls and strength, we must invite God into every part of our lives. Nothing can be more important.

It is perfectly acceptable to want your children to succeed in other aspects of their lives, but our kids have to see what comes first in our lives. Children listen to our words, but they learn from our actions. If we want their love for God to be number one, they must see God being number one in our lives. It is so much more than having them at church every time the doors are open. They must see us being kind, loving our enemies, helping those who need our help.

We want their lights to shine; let them learn that from us.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Eat, Love: Organic Foods on a Budget

My grocery bill is getting higher and higher. I owe it all to Netflix. I am a documentary junkie, and Netflix has a ton of them available on demand. One night I was looking for a good one to watch, and I came across Food, Inc. That's when my grocery bill began getting higher and higher. A look behind the scenes of America's food supply is sad, sobering and just really gross. I had smelled the feed lots of West Texas and the chicken houses of East Texas, but the glance of the inside I got from Food, Inc. had an impact on me.

I can't blame it all on Netflix. When Lily came along I began analyzing every factor of our lives, and food was one of those. We decided to start using beef and milk without added hormones as a first step. Study after study shows the age of the onset of puberty dropping; studies are not absolutely conclusive, but more and more evidence supports the idea that we are shortening childhood with the added hormones in our beef and milk. These added hormones make our dairy cows produce more milk and they make our slaughter cows get really big, really fast, but do we really want these hormones going into our kids? Just a side note: most other meats and animal product, like pork, poultry, and eggs, are free of added hormones due to government regulation.

I managed to move on from meat to produce. I was pretty sure I wanted to cut out pesticides along with the hormones. However, I didn't want to cut out hormones, pesticides and electricity; after looking at the prices on many organic foods I realized the electricity might just have to go if we were going to pay our big fat organic grocery bill. That's when I came across the Environmental Working Group's Dirty Dozen, the list of foods that contain the highest levels of pesticide residue. By purchasing organic on these twelve items, you can reduce your intake of pesticide residue by 80%. Here's the list:

The Dirty Dozen

1. Apples

2. Celery

3. Strawberries

4. Peaches

5. Spinach

6. Nectarines

7. Grapes

8. Sweet bell peppers

9. Potatoes

10. Blueberries

11. Lettuce

12. Kale/collard greens

EWG also has a list of foods with very low pesticide residue. These foods, called the Clean 15, are listed below and, in the opinion of your humble blogger and her bank account, are not worth paying those organic prices.

Clean 15

1. Onions

2. Sweet Corn

3. Pineapples

4. Avocado

5. Asparagus

6. Sweet peas

7. Mangoes

8. Eggplant

9. Cantaloupe

10. Kiwi

11. Cabbage

12. Watermelon

13. Sweet potatoes

14. Grapefruit

15. Mushrooms

Hope this helps! In the end, just do your homework and do the best you can by your family. Happy shopping!

For more information on foods and pesticides, check out http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/list/

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Work, Pray: The Human Trapper Keeper

I do not have a natural urge to have an organized life. I have had a tendency toward chaos and disorganizaton since I was a young child. I didn't line up blocks as a toddler. In school, the Trapper Keeper was my best friend because I could close it and trap the hundreds of loose pages in my notebook. My CDs (remeber those?) were never in the correct cases. On my computer, I have photos in my music folder and music in my documents folder. I have replaced no less than five drivers licenses because they ended up somewhere other than that little window pocket in my wallet. I am a complete mess.

The funny thing is, I have always faked organizational skills very, very well. The Trapper Keeper was a metaphor for my life. When I was asked for an assignment from my terrifyingly messy notebook in school, I could always pull it out. When someone asked me to check something on my calendar, I could always find it. Problem is, it was not in the calendar. I am just really fast about searching my old emails for keywords or flipping through old receipts with notes jotted on the backs. Just because the photo I was looking for was in the music folder did not mean it was lost. Someone knew where it was. I knew where it was. There seemed to be some method of organization in my brain.

I felt a certain pressure to be more organized. I spent money on this stuff. Remember PDAs? I forked over a pretty large chunk of change back in 2002 for a state of the art Windows based PDA. I think I entered two important reminders in the PDA. I also loaded up some games, Bible software and some mp3s on the handy little gadget. Then one night I forgot to plug it in. I found it, complete with dead battery, weeks later. Owning a PDA did not change my life. Losing a PDA did not change my life. I still made those two important appointments the same way I had made appointments in all the other years of my life; I just remembered.

I spent a small fortune on file boxes, organizational cubes, daytimers and many other organizational tools. I am always so optimistic and excited about these new organizational tools. I start off with enthusiasm and within about three hours the enthusiasm wains. The file boxes end up being filled random papers, organizational cubes end up holding all the different types of junk I was originally trying to separate. The daytimers had no meaningful words written on them; instead the margins were filled with my doodling. I just relied on my memory.

Occasionally the chaos would become overwhelming. I would go through my CDs and put them in their proper places. I would organize my messy notebook, often because it was being graded. I would rearrange the folders on my laptop. I would clean out my purse. I would write things in my calendar. I would go to the Container Store. Then it would all start again.

I breezed through life on my memory, remembering appointments, assignments, meetings. Then one day the myth of mommy brain became a reality. I needed help. I needed organization. The way my brain worked seriously changed. I don't know anything about the science behind it, but I do know that in 9 quick months my daughter sucked half my brain power. I often say that she better be a smart kid since she took away so much of my intelligence. People laugh. It's as if they think I am joking.

When Mommy brain set in, I knew there had to be a better way. I suddenly had what I perceived to be less brain with more stuff to put in it. I had to have important numbers handy, I needed to know when appointments occurred, I had to have the right foods for Lily to eat, I needed to have seasonally appropriate clothes ready for Lily to wear, I needed to know which meetings I had coming up for work so I could arrange my childcare and I had this little human being depending on me to make sure it was all right. I suddenly became a pretty organized person. Lily made me do it.

There are still days I struggle with organization. Since I keep my calendar, address book and nearly everything else on a smartphone, one of those days came when Lily dumped my phone in the toilet. I still hae my Trapper Keeper moments, but most of the time everything is neatly filed away behind the correct divider. I feel accomplished. I was able to change something about myself. I changed something that once seemed to be a part of my personality. It's funny how motherhood can do that to you.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Love: Favorite Toddler iPad Apps

I really like my iPad, but my child is what I would call passionate about the iPad. Sometimes she wakes up in the morning and the first words from her mouth are "iPad" and "muffin."
At first I was a little hesitant to let her play with it. I wasn't even worried about the obvious "toddlers break things" issue; I worried about what it might do to her brain. I even googled "toddler iPad brain" to find out if I was going to mess up the child. Her chants only got louder. "Hipad! Hipad! Hipad!" I finally decided there must be some way this little gadget could be an educational tool. I downloaded a Sesame Street episode about good eating habits and within a couple of days she was begging for yogurt instead of ice cream.Best of all, this iPad was God's gift to parents on road trips or the commute to work.
I started downloading apps that could teach Lily her ABCs, colors, shapes, Bible stories and anything else I thought could be beneficial to her. It is overwhelming how many apps are available. We have tried many, but there are a few that she goes back to again and again. Here are my Top 5 picks for toddlers:

1. Monkey Preschool Lunchbox- So at first I was not sure about this app. It looked fun, colorful and had some catchy music, but I was skeptical about the educational potential. Then I watched Lily play. When it asked her to touch the green fruit, she touched the green fruit. She counted the fruit. She did anything that little monkey asked, all in hopes of getting a little virtual sticker for her virtual sticker board. It's bright, it is colorful and it has enough variety in the activity types and levels that it will keep toddlers enteretained for a very long time. Cost: 99 cents

2. My Bible To Go - This is a great Bible learning app for kids! It has simplified Bible stories that are read to the child while they look at corresponding pictures. It can grow with your child, too! As your child learns to read, they can record their own readings of the stories. Cost: 99 cents

3. Dr. Seuss's ABCs - Really fun app for learning the ABCs for Lily, nice sentimental value for Mommy. Even with all the cool graphics out there, I will always have a place in my heart for the look of classic Dr. Seuss. It is basically a digital interactive version of an awesome book. Cost: $3.99

4. Toddler Counting- I love this counting app. It has fresh looking graphics and is really clean looking, which sets it apart from the hundreds of other counting apps. When your toddler taps the items on the page, it says the number AND shows the number. My child often skips "6," but not with this app. Cost: 99 cents for full app, FREE for lite version

5. ZooZoo Safari- Fun little app that my child loves. It has 26 animals, starting with letters A to Z. You can tap the animal for the sound it makes and to watch it in action. Tapping the name of the animal tells you the name while spelling it out. Cost: FREE

Eat: No, thank you.

I wondered when it would happen. I looked forward to the first tooth, the first Christmas, the first word, but I have dreaded the first family shared vomiting illness for some time. Last week I was headed home on a Wednesday evening planning on having our regular hectic midweek evening. I was going to get home, have about 30 minutes to greet the hubby, give Lily a snack, get us dressed and get on the road to church. Then I would sing songs for 45 minutes with the adorable 2 year-old class and finally rest when we landed at a restaurant somewhere for our Wednesday night dinner out. As I drove along the highway mapping out the evening in my head, my phone rang. When I answered, I heard gagging and groans before my husband finally said, "Lily is vomiting." That simple statement was followed by more gagging and groans, none of which were Lily's.

My poor husband. When I married him, I knew what I was signing up for. He made no secret of his aversion to blood, vomit and stench. I remember the evening I sliced my finger while chopping some peppers and onions for shrimp creole. I asked him to run upstairs and grab a bandage, but when I looked behind me I realized he had seen a bit of the blood and was taking a seat before he fell backward on the tile. When we took our lamaze class, he was the guy who clenched his eyes shut during the mild, not at all graphic C-section video. The first trimester of pregnancy was harder on him that it was on me because honestly, hearing me vomit was harder on him than actually vomiting was on me. Now here he was, with a vomiting two year old, doing his best not to pass out or vomit on the child.

When I arrived home, Doug looked sicker than Lily. He quickly volunteered to run to the store for Pedialyte and get anything else we might need. He needed the break, I could tell. When he made it home from the store, we began talking about what we needed to do about childcare the next day. I had a really important presentation the next day, and he said that he would stay home. What a guy! It was more than just him being willing to get behind at work so I didn't have to. He was signing up to spend the day with his greatest nightmare: a puking toddler.

In the end, we all ended up with the virus. That's the reason I haven't blogged in a while. I realized now that this virus thing taught me a few things. A toddler sitting in your lap will not warn you before puking. When your child goes to sleep at 7 instead of 10 she will wake up at 4:30 ready to play. Pedialyte does not taste as good as Gatorade. Women recover more quickly from bugs than men. A toddler will make a wreck of a house while her parents hug the toilet, leaving her unsupervised. Most importantly I learned, well, was reminded that I have a really sweet husband. :) I couldn't think of a better person to share a virus with.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Love: Dr. Sears and his handy website

I spent the first thirty years of my life mostly free from worry. I had a stressful job, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that I worried. When I think of worry, I think of sleepless nights and stomach ulcers. I was way above any of that and prided myself on my ability to be cool, calm, collected and confident in even the most difficult situations. Occasionally I was a little stressed, but I'd just flip over to Matthew 6, read verses 26-34 and remember that God's providence was going to take care of the birds of the air, the flowers of field and my strong and capable self.

Then one pretty spring morning I woke up with the urge to take a pregnancy test. It was positive, and I immediately found myself worrying. I was worried that I had a false positive due to protein in my urine after a meat feast the day before at a Brazilian steak house. I drank a gallon of water and an hour later tried again. It was still positive. I was so excited about being pregnant, but the worry had just begun. I didn't worry a bit about the finances of parenthood; I left that worry to the hubby, but I worried about everything else related to parenthood. I knew plenty of incompetent people who managed to keep their children alive and thriving, but the anxieties and insecurities hung around.

I worried about what I was eating, so I went online and found 40 different conflicting lists about what not to eat while pregnant. I went nine months without a sandwich with deli meat and nearly killed myself (and everyone around me) when I quit the caffeine cold turkey. Unfortunately, enchiladas and Whataburger were not on the bad list, so I gained "baby" weight at a rapid pace. I researched medications and found myself nursing my springtime allergic reaction with nothing but a Neti Pot. Lucky for me there had been no reports of the Neti Pot brain eating amoeba at that point in time. I gave up tennis because I had visions of a tennis ball flying into my abdomen and I stayed off my bicycle because I was pretty sure I would fall when I became the first person to ever forget how to ride a bike. During the first trimester I found myself awake in the wee hours of the morning fretting about the seat belt in my car. Thanks to Google, I found diagrams for the correct way to wear a pregnant woman to wear a seat belt.

The internet was my best friend and my worst enemy. Often it armed me with information that helped my fears subside. Other times I obsessed over the irrational advice freely dispensed on mommy forums and chat groups. Before this pregnancy thing, I knew better than granting credibility to people who typed "2" instead of "to" and who disagreed with their pediatrician on every...single...point. Then came the epiphany. A midnight Google search for information on crib bumper pad safety brought me to the website that would soon become my best friend.

If you have never checked out askdrsears.com, you, too will probably fall in love with my fried, Dr. Sears,. I found the answers to pretty much every question I had on one single website. There is information on every stage of pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, nutrition, sleep safety, vaccines, childhood illnesses...you name it! This single website has answered so many questions for me at every stage: as the mother of a child still residing in my body, as the mother of an infant and as a mother of a toddler. The acetaminophen and ibuprofen dosage charts one of the greatest lifesavers. After all, the "up to 24 lbs." dosage on the bottle can't be terribly accurate.

One of the greatest discoveries on Dr. Sears' website: Attachment Parenting. I have a feeling there will be an entire blog entry on this parenting style, but when I stumbled onto Dr. Sears's site I also stumbled onto a parenting style that has worked beautifully for my family. It empowered me to parent in the way I felt was best, but he gave it a name and research to back it up. Attachment parenting has given us permission to nurture our child in a natural and instinctive manner.

We are blessed to have a FABULOUS pediatrician that we see for our well checks and sick visits, but Dr. Sears has done a fabulous job serving as our 2am pediatrician. Here are some of my favorite links from askdrsears.com:

http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/childhood-illnesses/medicine-cabinet

Check out the dosage guides for some commonly used medications!

http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/skin-care/rashes

If your child has sensitive skin, this chart can bring relief to the rash and give mom peace of mind.

http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/attachment-parenting

If you are a new parent or a parent to be and are trying to decide exactly what your parenting philosophy looks like, take a look at attachment parenting. It's not for everyone, but I am a fan.

-Alison

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Pray, Love: Birthdays, Control Issues and Dogs

Monday, July 8, 2013

Love, Work: Treasure

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Love: Heart-Shaped Crayons