Return of the Foodie

Yes, that's right.  I finally am making another food post!  Can you hear the crowd cheering?  And by crowd I mean me.  Woooot!

I've been out of the loop in inventive cooking since Jilly's been born.  You would think I'd have to be more creative and find options that are quick and easy to eat one handed, but let me tell you, that kid rules this house.  Most nights Marshall is working, and it's much easier for me to heat up that Lean Cuisine than invent a cuisine of my own.  And on days when I do have time to cook, I've been making the same things over and over.  (I did, however, make a pretty tasty pork tenderloin for Easter, if I do say so myself, using a glaze made of Catalina dressing and honey, and a sprinkling of chili powder, garlic powder, rosemary, and something else which escapes me at the moment.  It was yummy.)

But tonight, my readers, it was on.  I felt the itch.  I needed to invent something.  But what?

History lesson: Today is Cinco de Mayo.  Which, in America, is a holiday where college students and those wild and crazy peeps without kids drink Tequila and Margaritas and Corona and Dos Equis while doing a drunken Mexican Hat Dance in celebration of something or other that happened in Mexico.  In short, Cinco de Mayo is an excuse to drink for us Americans.  I'm celebrating by drinking a small glass of Moscato.  Party hardy.

In honor of this holiday, I invented a new recipe I appropriately call "The Chixican Hat Dance."  It's a skillet dish (my favorite), and is not very healthy, but very, very tasty.  And of course I made enough for a small army so we have plenty of leftovers for the next night or so.  Here's what I had.

                   ~ 1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2 inch wide strips
                   ~ Taco seasonings (I make my own out of chili powder, ground cumin, paprika, garlic powder, and minced onion
                  ~ 3/4 cup water, divided
                  ~ 2 cups white rice, cooked
                  ~ 1 cup thick n chunky salsa (I use medium)
                  ~ 1 cup Frozen bell pepper strips, thawed
                  ~ 1 can whole kernel corn
                  ~  1 cup Shredded Monterey Jack or Cheddar cheese*

And here's what I did.

Heat a small amount of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add chicken and cook 10 minutes, turning the chicken strips every few minutes or so.  Sprinkle with taco seasonings and add in 1/2 cup water.  Heat to simmering, turning chicken strips every few minutes.  Once chicken has finished cooking through (approx. 5 more minutes), remove chicken from skillet.  Reduce heat to low.  Add in 1/4 cup water, white rice, and salsa.  Mix together.  Add in pepper strips and corn.  Mix together.  Place chicken on top.  Smother with cheese and serve.

The finished product, which is tastier than it looked.

It was so, so yummy!  Next time, though, I'm going to add in a can of black beans.  I didn't have any in the cupboard this time.

It's nice to get back to doing something I love!

* I put one cup of cheese, but I just sprinkled over top to cover.  Use as much or as little as your heart desires!

Amazing!

Being a woman is amazing.  It really is.  Some days I feel like a superhero.  Today is one of those days.

Being a woman means that I got to feel life growing inside me.  A life that started as small as the period at the end of this sentence, and grew from that tiny dot to an almost eight pound, fully formed little human being in nine months time.  My body sheltered her and provided for her.  Every detail of her little body, from her dark brown hair to her teeny little toenails, grew with my help.  And when this tiny little girl was ready, my body got her out into this world.  Nine months of work met the world with 14 hours of work, from the first drip of pitocin to the final push.  And in a matter of weeks my body healed itself and went back to it's normal, not pregnant state.

And her she is, three months later, and still being nourished by me.  My body continues to provide everything she needs to grow and thrive.  From 20 inches long and 7 pounds 14 ounces at birth, my sweet little girl is now 24.5 inches long and 14 pounds 11 ounces.  In three months, she's grown an astounding four and a half inches and is almost 7 pounds heavier.  She is growing by leaps and bounds, and it is all because of me.  My milk makes her grow this much.

And that makes me feel like a superhero. 

For those who asked about cloth diapering...

Let me begin by saying I am no expert.  I am just a beginner.  But now that I've started, I love it!  And when I love something, I love sharing that something. 

Lots of people have asked me in recent days about cloth diapers.  Personally, when I was pregnant I thought briefly about it, but when Marshall said "No way!" I didn't argue, thinking I didn't want to mess with pins and poop anyway.  I didn't really look much into it, and didn't think anyone really did cloth diapering anymore anyway.  It was pushed out of my mind.  The end.  Little did I know that even with disposables I'd have to touch and deal with baby poop anyway!

After Jilly was born, a friend of mine (hi, Krystal!) started talking to me a bit about cloth diapering.  I saw pictures of her sons wearing cloth diapers and thought, "Wow, those are really cute!  Is that what cloth diapering is?"  Krystal sent me a diaper to inspect and try, and I was super surprised how cute and easy to use it was.  So I started asking her a million questions, and started doing some research on my own.  She gave me some great links to sites that sell diapers, and I saw that I could make it as expensive or affordable and I wanted.  And it wasn't too expensive to start either.  So I started buying diapers, detergent, pail liners, wet/dry bags, and became so excited to start.

Lots of people have asked me in recent days how this works.  So, I made a little tutorial of pictures to post here.  This will show you all what they look like and how to use them.  I think you'll be surprised.  I know I was.

There's a few different types of cloth diapers, but what I settled on are pocket diapers.  These come in two components: the cover and the insert.


On left, the cover.  On right, the insert.

 Pocket diapers are so called because the diaper is a pocket that you stuff th insert into.  As if you couldn't figure that out for yourselves, hee hee.


The pocket

 While they do sell cloth in sizes, the most economical option is the one size cloth diaper.  The one size diaper contains a row of snaps to adjust the length of the diaper.


The vertical rows of snaps are to adjust the length.

 The snaps on our Sunbaby diapers give you three settings for length.  Unsapped is large, snapped to the top row is medium, and snapped to the bottom is a small.  Jilly wears a medium right now, so I snapped the diaper to the top row.


Super easy!

 After adjusting the diaper to the correct size if needed, you slip the insert into the pocket.

Your whole hand can easily fit into the pocket, so slipping in the insert is quick and easy.

The stuffed diaiper (and hi, Lisa feet!)

I put the diaper on Jilly's favortie stuffed animal for viewing purposes.  Putting on the diaper is really easy.  They go on just like a disposable.  There's a row of snaps for a hip adjustment and a row for the width adjustment.

The many snaps let you get the diaper as tight around as you need, and the hip snaps help keep in the poo.

The tab of the diaper contains three snaps, one for the hip, and two for extra hold around the waist.

And voila!  You have a fully diapered baby (err...stuffed giraffe).

George Girraffe is super confy in his fluffy butt

When the diaper is dirty, you just take it off (duh), and separate the insert from the cover before throwing it in your diaper pail.  I like to just untuck the insert a little bit and shake it into the pail, that way I don't have to really touch it too much.  I give it a quick spritz of a water and baking soda solution before throwing it in there, too, just to help keep smells to a minimum.  I've run across a few tricks like that on the internet.  I don't get any more dirty than I do changing a disposable.

Slightly untucked so I can shake it right out

I put the dirties right into my hanging wet bag.  Once I get my big trash can for in here, this will line the can.  I bought bags made out of the same material as the diapers, so when it's time to wash them I can carry this whole thing downstairs, empty it into the washer, and throw my bag right in there with the diapers and wash it all at once.  I bought two bags, so I can swap them out with the dirties.  Super convenient and easy!

After they're clean, I go ahead and set them to the right size and stuff them.  Then I throw them back in the laundry basket and and just the basket of clean diapers by her changing station.

Clean fluff!

I grab as I need them.  Super easy-peasy!  It's exciting to give her a new cute look every two hours or so.  Today she's wearing an Indians T-shirt from Auntie Bre-Bre and whatever diapers I fancy.  Every diaper change she gets a super cute butt.  I love it!

Hope this answers some of your questions.  Gotta go feed by Jillybean now. She's starting to wake up from her nap!

Springtime! Outside!

It's springtime here in Germany, and that means the flowers are starting to bloom, trees are starting to bud, and the weather is becoming downright gorgeous.  We've had temps in the 70's the past few days (or at least mid to high 60's), the sun has been shining for at least part of the day, and the breeze is cool without being cold.  Perfect weather to enjoy being outside.

I used to daydream about having a baby to take outside when the weather is nice, to sit on the lawn and play.  In my little fantasy, the baby would be happy to be enjoying the fresh air with Mommy.  We would play, maybe look at a book, and in the end the baby would fall asleep on the blanket in the grass, snuggled up under my arm, and I would look at the clouds or read a book of my own while enjoying the sunshine-y day.

Now that I have a baby, I could not wait to make this a reality.  The first day I tried this, she was already having a super grumpy day.  So when she just laid there like this:

I thought it was just because she was having a bad day.  When she started crying, I thought, Well, this is no different than what she's been doing all day today, poor girl, and we went back inside.  I was convinced it was not because she hated the outside, and was determined to try again later.
Yesterday, the weather was beautiful and my baby was super happy.  So I packed up a laundry basket with my big playmat, toys and a book for her, her bumbo seat, a blanket, my nursing cover, water and a snack for me, and a book for me optimistically thinking maybe she'll take a nap outside (another of my favorite spring and summer activities) and I can lay down with her and read my book.  Then I put her in my sling and walked out.

For a few minutes, we sat there together, feeling the spring breeze on our faces and basking in the sun.  She was happy and content.  I took her out of the sling and put her down on the mat on her tummy, which is her favorite way to play right now.  Then I grabbed the camera ready for her normal tummy-time smiles, and ready to capture our playing outside on film.  Instead, I got this:

Apparently, my daughter hates playing outside.  She likes walks.  She likes being in the ring sling outside.  Just not on the ground.  Can you hear the sound of my shattered daydream?  Hee hee.  I guess we'll try again at a later date.  I think it's kind of funny, but I can't believe how much she hates the outside right now.  We'll keep trying when she's a little older, but for now we'll be content with tummy time in the house.

"I would NEVER do that!"

Before I begin, and in my defense, I never actually said those words in regard to parenting.  I'm a "to each their own" kind of girl, so I didn't do the stereotypical when pregnant "I would never let my baby to this," or "I would never do that with my child," kind of thing that a lot of women supposedly do.  I try really hard to stay open-minded in all things, especially things that I have no experience in, such as raising babies.  :)  That being said, I'm surprised to find that I did have a few preconceived notions of things I thought I wouldn't do, and am now surprised to find myself doing on a regular basis, and things that I swore I would do religiously that I just don't.

Biggest case in point:  bed-sharing.  I swore up and down that there was no way I would let my baby sleep in bed with us.  It is so dangerous!  What if I roll over on her in the middle of the night?  Eek!  Plus, it only makes it harder for her to get used to sleeping on her own.

She started off in her bassinet.  By the end of the first week of her life, I still had not gotten a good night's sleep even though she was sleeping up to 4 hours at a time.  I was constantly getting up and peering into the bassinet to make sure she was still sleeping and that she was breathing.  We were having problems with breastfeeding on top of it all, and I was super stressed out.  I opened up a couple of the books I have on breastfeeding, and they all said the same thing:  put the baby in your bed for a day or two of nothing but sleeping and breastfeeding.  Spend that time getting to know each other with no distractions.  So, I grabbed Jilly and climbed into bed one night with her.  She scooched herself right into me and fell straight to sleep, and so did I.  I slept better than I ever slept.  If I woke up to check on her, she was right there with me, so I barely have to rouse out of sleep to be sure she's okay.  Happy mama = happy baby.  Yay!

Still, I felt guilty.  I caved in on something that was a solid stance in my eyes.  Isn't it wrong to have your baby with you in bed?  Marshall and I discussed it a few times, and he was never bothered by her being in bed with us.  He sleeps on the left, I sleep in the middle, and Jilly sleeps on the right with my arm tucked around her safely and a rolled up blanket behind her.  Then, a ran across this article talking about the benefits of co-sleeping.  No more mommy guilt, yay!

So here's what I've discovered.  Jilly and I went breastfeeding pro a few days after I put her in my bed.  Seriously, I call her "Barracuda Baby" when she eats because it's a chomp and gulp that reminds me of an animal attacking it's prey.  We both sleep better and longer.  Ironically, I usually wake up just before her when it's time to eat.  I'll stir, notice her stir, then wake up, then she'll wake up.  So by the time she's fully awake to eat at night or in the morning, I've already gotten enough wits about me to know what's going on.  (Fortunately for me, my daughter and I wake up the same: slowly and drowsily.)  Since sleeping together, there has not been ONE time where she's woken me up by crying or fussing.  Even on the rare occasion she wakes up before me, it can't be that long she's awake because I wake and look at her to see her staring at me like "Oh, hi Mommy!  It's boob time!  Wake up!"  But no fussing.  It's like we are so in tune together that we can read each others' minds.  Freaky!  Freak-ay!

My favorite things about bed-sharing that made me decide to keep doing it are as follows (well, actually there's a ton of things I love, but I'm narrowing it down to a few here):

-  We sleep skin-to-skin.  I'm down to my sports bra style super comfy nursing bra and undies, and she's down to her diaper.  More skin-to-skin means happier baby and mommy, at least for us.  I luuuurv (that's love in strang language) feeling her baby soft skin against me as we snuggle off to dreamland.

-  The first thing I see every morning is my baby.  The first thing she sees when she wakes up is her mommy.  The first thing we do upon waking and making eye contact is give each other a huge smile.  There is nothing better in the entire universe than seeing your baby look at you and smile every single morning without fail.  God, I love her!

-  Rivalling that baby smile in heart melting ooey-gooey love is what she does when we lay down.  I lay her on her back with her head resting slightly on my arm, so her head is about even with the bottom of my chin.  She will roll onto her side, scooch herself right into me so we're pressed together, and look up at me until she falls asleep.  Or she'll whine a bit until she gets her paci that she loves oh-so-much, then look at me and fall asleep. 

-  Lastly, for humor, because I think this is hilarious, sometimes I wake up because in her sleep, she has placed her baby mouth around my boob like it's chow time.  Over my bra.  She's not actually trying to eat, but I think it's hilarious because it's like she just wants to have it there for comfort.  "Don't take that boob away, Mom.  I'm just gonna put my mouth right here so that I know you're not taking it away."

I've never once even come close to rolling over on her like I was afraid of.  Mommy instinct, I think.  And it's really nice that we all get to cuddle together like a family.  In a couple months, when she sleeps fully through the night, I'll start integrating her into her crib, and I think it'll be harder on me than her!

One more funny Jilly fact about her new skills and habits.  She's discovered she has a voice.  She'll look at me and coo, goo, and mostly growl and grunt, then smile and start the process over.  We'll talk to each other, which she loves.  Anyway, lately, her favorite thing to talk to is, you probably didn't guess this, my boobs.  She'll eat a bit, pull off, and grunt and coo and smile at them for about 30 seconds to a minute, then chomp back on and eat again.  I think it's the funniest thing I've ever seen.  Her eyes get all big and she moves her hands and feet excitedly.  I imagine she's thanking them for the meal they are providing her.  She gets so excited about food!

Okay, that's enough of my random ramblings for today.  Bottom line message is my daughter is awesome and I adore her!  ♥

Marshall and the Med Board

The title of this post sounds like a bad children's book, lol.  Anyway, for those of you who have been following Marshall's situation and the craziness that has found its way into our lives, I have an update for you!

To recap for a reminder if needed, and very briefly:  Marshall started breaking out in hives after we moved here.  It's been going on for a year and a half.  After a year, they ("they" being Air Force peeps) decided to send him to a Physical Evaluation Board (aka Med Board) because they think hives are the devil for some odd reason, and that Marshall cannot possibly function on a day to day basis with his job if he breaks out in hives every so often.  His first board came back with the shittiest judgement possible: discharge with severence pay and a 10% disability rating.  Basically, they pooped on us.  So, we decided to appeal to the formal board, meaning Marshall had to leave Feb. 2 to go to Texas to meet with this new board, in hopes that they would not poop on us and see how stupid it is to remove an excellent Airman from his duties because of stupid hives.  (Whew, that was a giant rambling mouthful!)

Well, I'm really starting to think God is trying to tell us something with this.  First off, my husband arrives with no problems on last Wednesday.  Thursday, he meets with his attorney, who tells him that with Marshall's awesome APRs and the letters he had from supervisors saying he's #1 and how awesome he is, it should be no problem to get him returned to duty.  Marshall calls me and tells me this, and we get excited and joyfully talk about how our lives can finally go back to normal after this.  Woo hoo!  Or at least as normal as they can be while adjusting to parenthood.  His attorney was supposed to call him that afternoon and tell him when his hearing would be, but for some reason, Marshall never hears from him.  We assume he'll call the next day.

Friday, Texas gets a freak snow storm of one inch of snow.  The base shuts down.  Marshall still doesn't know when his hearing is, and everything is closed.  Saturday, I call Marshall's room for the first time.  When he answers the phone, there's 30 seconds or so of nothingness before a tentative hello.  Turns out, his room phone ringer doesn't work.  A little light blinks to indicate a phone call, but no ring.  He just happened to be sitting right next to the phone and catch the blinking when I called.  So if anyone was trying to get a hold of him, they couldn't.  A work order was placed for a new phone, which as of today he still has yet to receive.

Anyway, Monday morning he stops into the attorney's office first thing, and finds out his hearing was in half an hour.  Score one for him for finding out just in time.  Of course, they had been trying to call him, but since his phone doesn't ring he had no idea.

Marshall called me after his hearing feeling pretty confident.  After all, his attorney was confident he would be returned to duty, and Marshall said they asked him questions such as "If you end up being in the 1% of people this doesn't go away for in a few years, what will you do?"  We would be receiving an email in our home email with the results.

I checked the email like a hawk.  A few hours later, we got the results.  Discharge with severance and a 10% disability rating.  The same thing as the first board.  So apparently, hives really are the devil to the Air Force.  We had just heard that someone just came back with a heart condition they were born with and they were returned to duty.  Hives, apparently, are worse than a heart condition.  Big exasperated sigh of confusion!

There's another board.  This is a big one.  He'll have a JAG officer as his attorney.  Last night, he told me he's going to appeal this, too.  So, we're back in medical limbo.  This time, it'll be at least 6 months before he goes to this board (right now there's a 7 month backlog).  He's got a really good plan for how we're going to spend this time waiting.

Okay, baby's up now, so that's all for now!

Clockwork

I worried a lot before Jilly arrived about how to get her on a schedule.  I kept trying to picture in my mind how exactly I would make it so she would understand when to sleep, eat, play, nap, etc., knowing that it would be important to do so, but baffled at how you get a baby to do those things.  I'm surprised at the fact that she seems to have a schedule of her own that I've just adopted.  Maybe I'm just lucky, but in my head I never pictured a two week old having any structure to her day.  Although, I pictured a two week old as crying all the time, never sleeping, and pretty much doing nothing exciting or interesting besides laying there between crying and small amounts of sleep, to be honest.  I was wrong.

Jillian's day is pretty much clockwork.  We wake up at 7:30-7:45 a.m., get a fresh diaper, then eat breakfast in bed while Mommy watches the tail end of some celebrity gossip show on AFN and the start of Law & Order (which, for the record, doesn't interest me much but does make time go by much faster during feedings).  We get up, Mommy puts on some music, and we sing, cuddle, dance, and play until shortly after 9:00 a.m. when we take our mid-morning nap.  This is when Mommy enjoys a cup of hot tea, plays on the internet, writes blogs (sometimes, hee hee), and showers and gets ready for the day.  We wake up a little after 11:00 and eat, then play and have tummy time and snuggle until 1:00 p.m., when we eat again then take our afternoon nap.  Mommy sometimes sneaks a little nap here, too, or she calls her mommy for a nice chat.  Around 3:30 we wake up and eat, then after snuggles have some bouncy chair or swing time to look around and make funny noises.  We eat again at 6:00 or 6:30, depending on when Mommy decides to eat her own dinner (and we usually plan our food for as soon as she gets done fixing hers without fail).  We spend some time on the couch playing with Mommy again or take a bath here instead, then at 8:00 we eat again, and then it's bed time.  We wake up to eat at 11, sleep, 3 a.m., sleep, then start our day again at 7:30.  Although we have occaisionally gone until 8:30 before waking up.

I'm really satisfied with this.  She's always so happy, and that makes me happy.  It's amazing to me how routine she is, and it makes it easy for me to plan my day.  I feel so lucky to have such a cooperative little baby. 

Seriously, I thought I'd have a terror on my hands.  I wanted a baby so bad, I had myself convinced that when it finally happened I would have a demon child to deal with, because I couldn't possibly get lucky enough to finally have a baby and have her be perfect.  But instead, I have a baby who's as close to perfect as you can get.  It's baffling, lol.

Speaking of baffling (interesting segway here), Marshall is gone this week doing the Med Board thing.  He left on the 2nd, and won't be back until the 10th.  I'm getting pretty nervous about what the outcome of this will be.  He did meet with his attorney yesterday afternoon, and his attorney is very confident he'll be able to get Marshall returned to duty.  Yay!  I hope this isn't just a case of giving us false hope.  I don't want to rug ripped out from underneath us, so to speak.  It makes me really happy to hear this though, and I could tell in talking to Marshall last night that he feels way better about the situation, too.  So now we can just hope that the attorney is right and Marsh will still be an active duty Airman next week.  His hearing will probably be on Monday.  He has to get a few last minute things turned into the attorney today to show he's good at his job. 

I wish I could be there with him.  He's at Lackland Air Force Base right now for this, and won't have anything to do but relax this weekend.  He's planning a trip to the Riverwalk for some shopping, and I jealously want to be there, too.  I can imagine it in my head: me, Marsh, and Jilly strolling around, looking at all the stores and in the mall, stopping for some Mexican food (ooh chimichangas!), and enjoying our day together.  I miss him a lot, especially in the evenings.  Jilly can get kind of fussy right before her 11 p.m. feeding as I'm getting ready for bed and changing her diaper, and I really miss having him here to hold her while I brush my teeth and put my PJ's on.  He'll be home soon, though, hopefully with good news.  Hopefully I'll get a phone call from him today with an update on when his hearing is officially!