The moment I knew he was smarter than me

One of my all time favorite moments with T. Quaid was also one of the most horrifying. It was a moment that made me laugh so hard I cried and once I started crying I shed a few tears because my 18 month old had beaten me. It was bittersweet but mostly it was wicked awesome.

It was lunch time which for T. Quaid happens post nap. He was in his high chair which he had negotiated to be moved to the edge of the kitchen so he could watch his post nap movie. I decided it was fair, especially since Lala needed to be nursed and the movie would buy me some extra time without TQ scurrying about.

In terms of sign language, I started TQ really late and the only reason I did it was because he didn’t talk, he still doesn’t talk. The only thing I really wanted to know was when he was done eating so over the course of a couple of weeks he learned the signs for both ‘more’ and ‘all done’. It was easy enough.

So on this particular day I settled in on the couch beneath Ms. Lala while Nana chillaxed in the boppy next to me. Selah ate and then promptly fell asleep. TQ was eating some penne with pesto and guzzling apple juice happily until he was dissatisfied with my masterful arrangement.

I heard him saying something that I dismissed as toddler gibberish and continued to hold Selah and talk to Noah until I felt something hit my head. It was penne, and it was everywhere.

Me: Taegan! Stop buddy, stop!

Taegan looked at me and continued with what I had earlier dismissed as gibberish and plain as day signed and said ‘more’ and then chucked another piece of pasta at my face. I was laughing so hard I could hardly breathe as TQ continued his tirade, alternating ‘more’ and ‘all done’ as he strewn his noodles through out the kitchen and living room.

I was stuck, and he knew it. I had both a sleeping infant and a happy infant and a little pasta on the floor wasn’t worth disturbing the equilibrium. I just sat back and enjoyed my son’s victory.

He was exercising his right to protest and his demonstration while it remained peaceful, was very effective.

Productivity

Being productive for a stay at home mom could mean almost anything. Beating a diaper rash (Noah’s still plagues us, but a combination of garlic, Greek yogurt and breastmilk are gaining us some ground), making dinner, changing diapers, brushing my teeth, doing the laundry, cleaning…cleaning anything really, going for a walk, supervising TQ paint, avoiding civil war, making baby food, folding clothes (you might think that folding clothes is included in doing laundry, but with 3 children the two have been separated entirely), sweeping, the list is as endless as can be. Productivity recently means two things to me. The first is a garden, the second is cupcakes.

First of all, something that you’re all interested in. The Babes. The Babes are awesome. T. Quaid has decided that he is more OK with using real words, some times, and has taken an official interest in the potty. He has been interested before, but this time it seems to be lasting. Please Jesus, let him be potty trained soon…ish.

The Twinsies are pretty much the coolest duo ever. And when I say ever I am asserting their awesomeness above the likes of Martin and Lewis, Abbott and Costello, Elmo and Mr. Noodle, Barbie and Ken, Woody and Buzz and many other duos previously thought to be the best. Nay, I say, nay. The Twinsies out-awesome all of those poor fools. They are 9 months now. Let me say that again. Nine months. Old. 3/4 of a year…meaning almost a year…yet it was not even a year ago that we knew there were two of them. Chew on that for a while. They eat a lot. I make baby food probably twice a week at this point. I’m so grateful for the time to do it, we would be spending their college tuition on feeding them otherwise. They are also on the cusp of walking. They can take up to 6 steps unassisted this week, last week that number was 2 or 3. Watching them together is amazing. They have a partner to discover/conquer the world with. And they have Brubby…he is on their side 100%…except when he is pushing them over…but he does it because he wants them to chase him…admittedly, we may have played to rough with him for him to understand proper social behavior. Oops. Parenting is like law or medicine, it’s a practice. Anyway, all that to say, aside from their waking still 2-5 times a night (big span, huh?), they are amazing and enhance our lives in every way.

OK, onto the new ventures in productivity. This year we are planting a vegetable and herb garden. We spend a small fortune on produce and I don’t want to do that any more. I want to grow food! Good food. Food that didn’t come from GMOs or was harvested by Mexican children. I want my children to learn about sustainable living. I want them to learn how to compost and plant and harvest and cook real food, real good food that has nutrients that they need. First, I have to not suck at this. I’m nervous. But, we trudge onward. This past weekend we built an 8×4 bed and I tilled about 2/3 of the soil. My dear friend Charity is my forerunner, she did a garden last year and I am gleaning information from her as we go. We’re pretty excited.

The next venture is cupcakes. We’re kind of on opposite ends of the spectrum here. Fresh produce to white flour, but bear with me. My friend Lauren has been talking about doing a cupcake business for a while but she has been super busy this past year with things like school and getting married so now that the dust of her life has settled, together we had a great idea. Not just cupcakes, boozy cupcakes. Yep. Cupcakes, filled with alcohol. We’ve made two recipes so far and they’re both awesome. Also both were stolen, but we tweaked them enough to call them our own. We bake Wednesdays and Saturdays and have also joined a gym. We feel like we are at the beginning of something that could be cool.

Alright, *sigh* I never know how to end these…

Diaper Rash and Other Drugs

T. Quaid hardly ever had a diaper rash, I’m talking almost never…his bum got a bit red maybe 3 times so far in his just over 2 years. This has not been the case with the ladies. Even worse, occasionally it’s a yeast rash. As I’ve said before I put breast milk on it, but this time, for our lovely Ms. Noah, that didn’t work. The next morning it was the angriest looking rash I’d ever seen on our children.

So to the google. I know friends who have used garlic cure their yeast infections but was unsure about what to do with my babe.

As I read about garlic’s properties and general awesomeness I decided to forgo the mixtures and pastes that included other ingredients and simply decided to go to the pantry, pop off a clove, give it a little beating with my knife and simply toss it in her diaper. It worked like gangbusters. This morning her rash is nearly completely gone. It is no longer an angry red but a faint pink. I would guess that by tomorrow morning it will be but a memory.

New subject, a friend asked me a while ago how to get their babe to drink out of cups and at the time, I said that I had nothing to offer because The Twinsies love stealing their Brubby’s cups, but then my husband reminded me of the trial that it was to get T. Quaid to drink out of a cup. Jen, this one’s for you.

He refused, there was nothing we could do to convince him that cups were awesome. Until we found this.  After we started using it, our life got simpler.  He only used it for a couple of weeks before he went to a cup with a little harder top.  The familiarity of the top helped him get the concept.

In other news, The Twinsies have been upgraded from “crawling” to CRAWLING, you know what I’m talking about.  They also can stand up anywhere, no furniture or wall needed and each have taken as many as three unassisted steps.  T. Quaid now sees their value.

Alright, that’s all for now keep on keepin’ on.

Baby Food and Other Things

Hello friends! Today I make baby food. I thought I’d post what I do so you can see how easy it is.

Pears, apples and oatmeal awesome sauce

3 pears
2 apples
filtered tap water
3 cups of rolled oats
Cinnamon

First I chop my pears and apples, I don’t peel them, I leave the peels for the fiber. In terms of size of the the chop I just chop, not necessarily a fine dice, it doesn’t take too long to cook. Then I add just enough water so I don’t feel like it’s going to stick.

Next I put three cups of rolled oats in the blender until they’re a very rough powder. When I add it to the pears and apples, I just want it to be a mash, not mush.

Once my pears and apples are soft, (easily blended, so really soft) I add my blended oats. I don’t have a food processor so I just use my blender and it works just fine.

Then I stir it all in adding filtered tap water to the consistency I want. When you put it in the fridge when it’s all done, the oats will further absorb the water so when you pull it out for your babes you may want to add more water or even some apple juice. The last thing I do before I put it in a container (usually a pyrex so it isn’t in plastic) is I add some cinnamon. I want my kiddos to experience flavor and the awesomeness that is the world of food, so I add spices to their food I make all the time.

Voila! This is breakfast for the twinsies for about 5 days. I just keep it in the fridge. Today at the store organic pears and apples were both on sale so I bought like crazy. Therefore, I will be freezing probably more than half of this batch.

I’m also embarking on two new foods for them today. Goat’s milk yogurt so I can make smoothies with fruit and veg in them for TQ for lunch, and also so the girls can have more variety, hopefully they dig. I think I’ll just add some blue berries to the girls’ for a mild sweet flavor.

I’m also going to mash up some butternut squash the same way I do sweet potatoes. I hope they like it, I want them to experience more veg.

Oh, and we’re making granola too. That’s not for the twinsies, that’s for me. Mama needs a super yummy healthy snack because it’s time to get back to a healthy weight. My friend Jennifer has lost 11 lbs in the last several weeks and she is making me super jealous. I, not being as brave as her, will only say that I weigh a lot. A lot more than I have ever weighed and it’s time to kick the twinsies to the nursing curb because my body isn’t handling the 2600 calories a day any more because the girls have slowed down quite a bit, so here we go. I want to lose 10 pounds before April 23rd. I have 70 days to do it. I want to wear a cute new dress to a friends’ wedding and I refuse to buy any more clothes in this size. We’re done. Yesterday I had to purchase a large…it was a downer to say the least.

After the initial 10 lbs my goal is simply to weigh 125, which is right in the middle of healthy for my BMI. I’m giving myself until my birthday

Alright friends, to health! And babies! Amen.

Things I’ve Learned

Hello world! So much to say…so little of it is interesting enough to even write…this is going to be a mess of a post.

As I sit on my perch that is the couch in the boy room the twinsies are scurrying about on the floor. They aren’t what one would traditionally call crawling, but it’s really, ridiculously close. They can also pull up on the furniture and both try desperately to go from sitting to standing in the middle of the floor but usually simply end up stuck with their hands and feet on the ground and little bums in the air, mildly panicked.

TQ is going between watching WALL E (we never really turn it off, except for Sid the Science Kid, don’t judge me) and sharing toys with the ladies while also tackling them. He loves them and they LOVE him. He cracks them up hard, everyday. They admire him so much, it’s beyond awesome, it’s delicious for my mommy heart.

Speaking of delicious, I’ve been making baby food! By the vat, for obvious reasons. I had always planned on making my own for the girls, but an episode of top chef spurred me further when one of the challenges was for the contestants to make baby food. One of the chef’s had an infant himself and said that he made all of his food, but was constantly putting different spices and flavors in it. So now I make baby food that is awesome, I would eat it. My main reason for making my own isn’t because of the price tag, it’s because even though I bought organic baby food with TQ (certified by Oregon Tilth, Gregory), it still bugged me that there was a chance that I didn’t know what was in the food that my babes were consuming. No likey. So, I just buy organic stuff, throw it in a pot, then the blender and voila! Breakfast, lunch and dinner for a week for the ladies. Done and done. Yesterday we roasted sweet potatoes and added chicken stock, cracked pepper and thyme and pureed it to twinsie perfection. They dig it. I also made pears and oatmeal with apple juice and cinnamon. They eat it, but grains aren’t their favorite thing. Oh well.

I’ve also decided to start making yogurt because goat’s milk yogurt is stupid expensive that way the girlies can have it for lunch. Also, I want TQ to start having fruit and green smoothies at lunch time because let’s face it, mac and cheese isn’t cutting around here any more. This way I can sneak him the good stuff. My dear friend Amy at The Midnight Cafe has been feeding her fam green smoothies for a while, so I thought I’d jump on board.

If you put breast milk on a yeast diaper rash it clears it up. Scout’s honor. I read it on a website, thought it was crazy, but free and natural so bam! Tried it, worked like a charm.

Selah will take a bottle cold, but neither Noah nor TQ will.

TQ turned 2 3 weeks ago, it’s awesome, in a super aggressive, enter the hitting, throwing, fit pitching stage sort of way…we take a lot of breaks and are learning the safe things to hit, ie pillows…we also are getting a lot of “help” meaning things like “TQ, give that back to your sister.” TQ: NO! “Let mommy help you then.” I’m beyond determined not to spank, flick, tap or whatever else the kids are calling it these days. Corporal punishment isn’t our way…we’ve made it 3 weeks into being two without it, we can do this. (Strengthening inner resolve).

In other news my Gram passed away, it sucks, but she’s with Jesus. Also, a compression connector in our tub blew yesterday…there was a waterfall in our garage as a result. But between my awesome husband and plumber father in law disaster, as is always, was averted…but it got all crazy for like 30 minutes because it happened while Jesse was at work and the twinsies were not yet napping…I had to field that beast…but it was fine. The Calvary arrived before damage was done to anything.

Alright, that is sufficient I do believe. Maybe I’ll post recent pictures soon…maybe I wont.

*posted from the couch sipping tea while watching my brood be awesome around me. Seriously? Yeah, seriously.

Today

I received the following text message:

Hey Char, I am outside.  I knocked twice, it sounds like you have your hands full in there.  When you get a minute, I’m sitting on your front steps.

Just another day at toddler and twinsies.

When we sign up to be Parents

Today I read some thing on FB that made me want to jump on a soap box so here I am! Back on my soap box.

A friend asked how to help her baby sleep better at night and received several responses. One in particular made me so so sad. I think by now you can all guess what was said, some well-meaning, lovely woman advocated letting the babe CIO.

I’ve said this before, but I just feel the need to reiterate. When we sign up to be parents, we sign our lives away. We trade them for poopie diapers and sleepless nights, endless loads of laundry, stains on the carpet, puke on our shirts, thankless days and more animated movies then we knew existed. This is what we do. We’re parents. If you’re going to have children, have children. Give up your ideas of normal life and instill in them a deep, thorough, sense of self. Let them know that you’ll never leave them, that you want them and that they are important. I love this article. It has informed our parenting methods quite a bit. Hope you learn something.