new culinary explorations

How gourmet can baby food get? Pretty yummy, I dare say.

I couldn't wait to start Abby on solid foods, so much so that when she hit four months, we hit the highchair right away. It didn't take long to master cereals, which made me happy to get some more interesting viands introduced to her palate. I'm someone who, while always enjoying the standard fare of middle class American fruits and veggies during my younger years, has rediscovered a love of veggies in my 20s, now that I have found new and exciting ways to make them besides throwing some frozen broccoli bits & pieces in the microwave. The oven and veggies are made for each other. Roasted anything is pretty much a-okay with me! Couple that with a little (or a lottle) bit of fresh Parmigiano Reggiano and I'm a happy happy veggie camper.

Something else that I blame on Manchester influences, I'm pretty sure that I could be a vegetarian after all if I wanted to be one. Right now, I'm really more of an often-but-not-always-just-because-I-still-enjoy-meat vegetarian. In other words, I'm a healthier eater now than I ever was growing up just because I'm willing to eat more veggies and in different forms now than I have before. Dare I say that I even ask for tomatoes on my sandwiches at Subway now??

I deeply wish that my Abby Shedabby will have a healthier lifestyle than me, especially what she eats. I can't wait to start a love of good food with Abby now. My plot involves two key components.

1. Do not use food as a bribe. As I watch my parents and siblings interact with my two nieces and nephew, who are 5, 4 and almost 2, respectively, I realize that this type of food-child relationship is ingrained in our society. "Eat three more bites of potatoes and then you can go play...Eat two more bites of your sandwich and then you can have a cookie...Since you asked so nicely, you can have a doughnut..." I can't help but think that this is why I eat the way that I do. I have been taught to reward myself. It also worries me that our families will continue this "tradition" with my daughter because that is what they do. I'm not sure if this is "wrong," but it is something that I'm now very uncomfortable with to teach my own child. Abby is only 6 months old, and already I have heard this sentiment multiple times: "This [the freezer] is where your mommy and daddy keeps ice cream...you'll get to have ice cream some day soon" or "Does Abby want a cookie? I bet that Abby wants a cookie!" No no no! Not my child!!!

2. Give Abby the very best food that I possibly can from the first spoonful of squashed squash. My theory is that I'm not going to have a bajillion kids, so I can afford to invest more quality in my small quantity. That means that I am willing to pay more for organic baby food, without complaint. It also means that I am intent on making my own baby food as is feasible. Herein lies my new culinary explorations.

So far, I've dabbled in pears and fiddled with sweet potatoes. I find that my blender is not the best aid in my endeavors. I did score a sweet, only used twice, 12-c Kitchenaid food processor this summer at a garage sale just with the intent of blitzing and blending to my baby's content. I haven't exactly mastered the art of using the big black machine yet, though, which means that I'm still reliant on my blender. Perhaps by the end of the month I will have figured out how to conquer the giant that lurks on the floor of my pantry. I have managed to stockpile the aforementioned pears and sweet potatoes in my freezer, though. And just in case you were wondering...Abby loves them. She loves all food that she's tried so far, except avacadoes. We're still working on that one.

Three things of randomness

Abby loves hair. She'll love Sarah Reed.

My "swans" are gone. Maybe someone with young children complained that the listing swan was disturbing. I miss them.

I'm not going to try the homemade baby wipes until paper towels don't cost as much as the wipes. Seriously.

animals around town

#1. I forget if I wrote about this already. Abby and I took a walk a week or so ago and walked/strollered by a couple walking their parrots. One on each arm. Now I can cross that off of my list of things to do before I die. (Walk by...people...in park...who each have...a...parrrrroooottt.....on their...arm..........in Kokomo.)

#2. Same park--I find dogs who wheeze after struggling up a small hill humorsome. Except that to be fair, I sometimes wheeze a bit on that hill, too. But I'm pushing a stroller and am lugging around an extra 10 lb. that I'm still not used to. But still, sorry excuse for a dog.

#3. 2 months ago, I got excited to see that a lovely pair of swans had settled in a pond outside of our Kohls (I know...weird, right?). Every time I drive by them, I admire their loveliness. Alas! One of the swans has died as it now floats all cockeyed. Odd, day after day it is still floating at this bizarre angle. Why hasn't anyone taken care of this bird that has to be scaring children. I mean, I'm fascinated by it, so children must be freaked out, too. Why does the other swan seem so unaffected by his deceased partner in swan crime? Seriously, 2 weeks later, and he's still there! Ewwww. Abby and I talk about it every time we drive by. I slow down and swerve into the other lane so that I can gawk at it if I drive by (no cars were coming, I really wasn't driving all that dangerously). I give Ben swan updates. And finally it hits me...the dead swan and its oblivious partner are fake. Ben drives by one time and confirms my suspicions. If I hadn't been busy dodging non-existent traffic in my gawking sprees, I might have noticed that the bottom of the listing swan was flat and lacked anything resembling legs and webbed feet. Seriously, someone...put the bird back upright! It's disturbing (me)!!

<>

Can a baby be earth friendly?

***Preface note--I have this whole thing typed out in a Word document, which apparently isn't compatible with this blog, so I'm retyping/copying the entire thing over again. It's a 3 1/2 page Word document that I began yesterday afternoon around 3 and it's now 9:30 the next morning. I have that much to say that obviously must be said. :-)***

Everyone who has had a baby in the past 20 years or so has likely been asked if they are going to use cloth diapers or disposable ones. Never for one moment prior to having Abby did I even remotely consider cloth. It's not that I don't like to hug the world now and again, but the safety pins, the leakage, the diaper rash, the goo oozing from clothy places, the plastic pants, the folding, the sanitizing, the LAUNDRY!!! It just seemed tooooo much, especially too much time invested for the net outcome. Not me! quoth I.

But two nights ago, a revelation of sorts. I'm a member of our church's Green Team/Care for Creation team (really, I think that we decided on the longer, more cumbersome name, but we still go by either, like what often happens with organized people), and another member of the team asked me to prepare some information on the environmental impact of baby products--diapers, wipes and such. Okay, no prob, I thought. I'm pretty invested in this and am rather curious myself, I thought. This won't change my mind one bit...I thought.

Aha, you think you know where I'm going with this. Curveball...I'm still gladly using disposable diapers and have no intention of plunking down my little credit card for any clothy, cottony nappies neither today nor tomorrow. However, maybe in a couple of days. The idea needs to ferment a bit before I act on it.

I was looking up some information for my "report," and I came across this website for Nicki's diapers, which looks to be pretty much THE place to go for cotton diapers. I say cotton instead of cloth for a very specific reason...these ain't ya momma's cloth nappies! Really, I just like the word "nappie" instead of "diaper." It is now going to be a staple in my baby lexicon. I found myself particularly intrigued by the "Mommy's Touch One-size All-in-one diapers," which seem to be much more accessible and dare I say less "work" than I thought cotton diapers were.

Pro for cotton nappies--less landfill waste, which can also potentially cause long term toxic effects on our environment that we still don't totally understand, and they're super uber cheap in the long run.

Con for cotton nappies--water & energy waste in the making, producing the cotton for these nappies is quite draining on our natural resources just like disposable, and it's really just convenient to be able to pitch out the mess

Consider the following (on average) facts:
*every child using disposables contributes approximately 6500 diapers to landfills
*those suckers take about 500 years to decompose (no recycling potential), though really how valid is this number? It's not like anyone has been able to hang around for 500 years to determine this.
*one baby can produce 1-2 tons of landfill waste
*from 2 years of disposable diaper usage, every child consumes the equivalent of 4.5 trees
*it takes 1 cup of crude oil to make the plastic necessary for 1 disposable diaper
*it takes 286 pounds of plastic (including packaging) to keep one child in disposable diapers for one year
*18 billion disposables are used in the U.S. alone in one year
*it takes 200-400 kg of "fluff" (the inner workings of a diaper) to keep a baby in disposables for one year versus 10 kg of cotton for a 2-year supply of cotton diapers
*diapers are the 3rd largest single consumer item and 30% of non-biodegradable waste in landfills
*a so-called "biodegradable" diaper really isn't so much because it still doesn't have access to the 2 main components that makes something decompose--air and sunlight--if it's all tightly rolled up and stuffed in a landfill
*technically, putting a poopy diaper in the trash is ILLEGAL because it is disposing of human waste, which is absolutely a no-no, but generally ignored for the good of all nappie needs
*the Landbank Consultancy, commissioned by the Women's Environmental Network in London, found that diapers create 2.3 times as much water waste, need 3.5 times as much energy in the making, use 8.3 times as much non-regenerable material and 90 times the amount of renewable resources, and need 4-30 times as much land space to grow the raw materials as cotton nappies. This means that they basically use 70% more energy than the equivalent cotton diaper.

If you're interested, I have the websites where I got this info.

There are a plethora of "greener" disposable options, for that matter, which I discovered as I was trying to reaffirm why I don't use reusable nappies (that snobby attitude didn't last long). Organic cotton nappies...hemp nappies...organic cotton/hemp blend nappies. Why doesn't Manchester sell these?!?

But something that is absolutely attainable and easy to fix in my greenest-baby-products quest is baby wipes!! You can totally make your own, and all that you need are four basic, every-parent-has-these "ingredients."

1 roll of good paper towels (cut in half)
2 c of boiling water that has been cooled (not every "recipe" called for this boiling/cooling method, but I think that it makes sense)
2 T baby shampoo/wash
2 T baby oil/olive oil

Seriously. How easy and cost effective is that!! Mix the liquids. Pour over one half of the paper towels. Let them soak it up. Put in a reusable container. Enjoy! So easy. So cheap. I'm going to try them as soon as I run through the current batch of wipes. And, they're completely as portable and convenient as wipes that you buy.

I did find one different recipe for homemade baby wipes, but it is more labor intensive, hardware intensive and cost intensive (for no apparent reason). I'm going to skip that one.

Though it seems like I'm just ragging on disposable diapers here, with the amount of energy that it takes to produce cotton diapers and then the amount to keep them squeaky clean and sanitized, it's really just 6 of one, 1/2 dozen of another. It comes down to maintenance cost. Really and truly. Energy wise, I could also put up a lot of statistics about how much energy it takes to produce a cotton nappie and then keep them chugging along in their absorbent glory. But I won't. This is really long. It's just cost, which isn't something to wholly ignore. Using 10 diapers/day for 2 years at $.15/diaper (which is approximately what we spend, give or take a penny now and again when something isn't as on sale or the coupons aren't as fabulous), which is quite a bit cheaper than Huggies & Pampers that aren't on sale and have no couponage (those run around $.22/diaper), it all comes down to just shy of $1100 for all of those disposables versus $200 or so for a 2-year supply of cotton nappies, depending on the brand and the amount that you need.

Think of the money that could be put away toward Abby's education instead of being currently used to absorbed and protect her (really cute) little bum.

But then again, I don't feel guilty or superior about either choice. Each one has merit. Each one has downfalls. Kind of like organic baby food...another post for another day.

Who We Are

I hate housework with a deadly passion. I'd usually rather grade than clean. Seriously, a deadly passion, I know. Here's a credit shout out to the Jane, who taught her children how to do housework, the boys as well as the girl. Because this means that...

...Ben knows how to do things like laundry and dishes. But if there's any particle of housework that I "like" to do, it's laundry, and now that I'm on maternity leave, I've really taken that over 100%. We used to share it but since the beginning of the school year, Ben has started one load. I have done every other, probably-3-7-loads-of-laundry-a-week-depending-on-how-much-bedding-needs-to-be-washed-oh-my-gosh-one-little-kid-produces-a-lot-of-laundry. This also means that...

...Ben sometimes gets my most hated cast offs. And when I say sometimes, I mean pretty much always. When we got married, we had a 5 minute discussion about who was going to be responsible for what job, and really so far, over 4 years later, it's still a rock solid system. He gets dishes. I get floors. He gets bathrooms. I get pretty much everything else like running errands because he's "stuck" at school and I'm somehow way more flexible even when I'm teaching full time and taking two graduate classes but that's okay because I get out of school 1/2 hour earlier than he does so that means I get to go to the bank and the credit union and take the cars to get serviced and everything else plus a bag of chips. Which means that...

...I have a hard time being calm about things that are his responsibility when they aren't done on my time schedule. It makes perfect sense to me. I do 100 billion things during the day and try to be done by 9. Ben does 100 billion things during the day and then comes home and plays video games or watches tv (to his credit...fits it around helping with Abby). This is a fundamental difference between us. He drives me crazy by starting to do his jobs at 9:30 at night. I drive him crazy by asking him if he's planning on cleaning the bathrooms tonight. All of this means that...

...over 4 years later, we still drive each other crazy and our rock solid system of doing things is really only rock solid 5 out of 7 days a week. Those other 2 days sometimes involve me muttering craziness about dirty dishes, and oh my, why aren't the dishes washed, and seriously, are we going to start the dishes yet, and I can't take it anymore, please start the dishes, thoughts to myself. Dishes are probably the #1 source of discontent between us. I think that we're cumulatively getting better about accommodating each other while still getting stuff done, but sometimes I wonder. And when I feel guilty about sitting on the couch reading the newspaper while he's in there doing dishes, which incidentally our couch is 10 feet away from the sink so it's rather obvious that I'm sitting doing nothing while he is doing something that I could be helping with, I remember--it's his own darn fault that he's waited this long. And then I sigh a bit, snuggle deeper into my cushy couch and rattle my paper just a bit. But this also means that...

...I really have to be careful about holding up my end of the bargain before I criticize his. For example, I find it challenging to get the floors swept around Abby's schedule, partly because it's such a low priority for me that I just plain forget when I have the opportunity. And now that we have considerably less carpet in the house, and I (imagine) hate sweeping, it doesn't get done on any sort of regular basis. Next time I get overworked up about the dishes, maybe I'll remember that Ben never comments on my lack of floor sweeping. But that might not be entirely truthful either. This boy never looks at the floor. Seriously, he doesn't notice anything below the horizon. Somehow we get things done, and really, it's the kind of house that I'd rather have. My mom is a bit of a cleaning nut, in my opinion, and it always bugged me to no end that we had to sweep and dust and wash and wipe everytime someone like my grandmother (who is absolutely not a cleaning person!!) came over. I always used to mutter as I dusted (big surprise...another job that I hate) that I would have a house that looked lived in rather than a house that looked sterile. I give you credit, Mom...I understand your position now. There's no bigger incentive for me to clean that to have someone come over to visit. Don't expect me to dust, though.

Fact of the day: if you leave the door to the bathroom open even the slightest of smidgens while you are taking a shower, you can absolutely count on having a furry little cat face poke in on your showering self at some point.

a Twitter-ish blog entry

Gorgeous November day! Just got back from walking 2 miles with Mr. Ben and Miss Abigail. Ben ran 1 (show off). Abby didn't walk at all. Supper--hot Culver's french fries and 2 mini brown sugar bagels with cream cheese. Nothing like a healthy supper after a modicum of exercise.

I have to write a paper...update

I'm now into my 7th page of a 3-5 page rough draft position paper that will eventually morph into a 15-20 page seminar paper. This is what I should have been working on last night. But now I feel vindicated for slouching last night. It's 7:56 and I declare myself officially slouchy again tonight!