Category: Josiah

Cooking With Siah

Yesterday Siah and I had an “at home” day.

There was a big important meeting at the office and while I could have gone in and taken Siah with me – I believe the stress level would have been quite high and having an active two year old racing around would have only added to any stress and really just wouldn’t have been necessary.

So, we stayed home!

And, we decided to cook up a storm…..well, as much of a storm as a two year old can handle.

We made some Zucchini Oatmeal Cookies and I have to say that these cookies have NEVER failed me. The recipe is (as far as I’m concerned) fool proof.

Zucchini Oatmeal Cookies

They are made with honey so can’t be considered truly vegan although they would be vegetarian, BUT regardless so SO delicious.

Here is the recipe…

Zucchini Oatmeal Cookies

Pre-heat oven to 375*F
Cook for 10-12 minutes

½ cup Butter (I use Earth Balance)
¾ cup Honey
1 Banana
2 cups Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Cinnamon
½ tsp Nutmeg
¼ tsp Salt
1 cup Grated Zucchini
1 cup Oatmeal

1. Cream the butter & Honey together
2. Add the Banana and Beat well
3. Combine Dry ingredients and add alternating with the zucchini into the mixture
4. Stir in the Oatmeal
5. Drop by teaspoons onto greased cookie sheet
6. Bake for 10-12 mins

They are chewy and moist and almost muffin like. In fact, I have just dumped the batter into muffin tins before and they are equally delicious, just bigger.

While our cookies were baking, we decided to throw together a Hot and Sour Soup that I’ve been meaning to try out.

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I’d link to the recipe, BUT….i have no idea where I got the recipe from….I was looking for crockpot soup ideas and found this one and cut and paste it into a word doc and well…..ya!

But, here is the recipe that I used, which was slightly (well, actually – significantly) adapted from the original.

Hot and Sour Soup

4 cups of Chicken Broth
4 cups of Water
4 T of Soy Sauce
4 T of Rice Wine Vinegar
1 T of Sesame Oil
1/2 t of Red Pepper Flakes
1 can drained sliced water chesnuts
half a medium zucchini
2 carrots
1 package of firm tofu cut into cubes (approx 1.5 cups)

I’d have added green onions if I had any, but I didn’t….so this is what we threw together.

It simmered for a while and was AMAZING. Siah thought it was a bit spicy, but you could reduce the pepper flakes if you didn’t want it too spicy. If you like Hot and Sour soup, try it….so easy. Just throw together and let simmer….then serve.

We had a great time baking and cooking together. I love spending time with my kids and I feel like involving them in the “making” process gives them buy in especially when it comes to food.

I find that they feel a sense of ownership regarding what they’ve created and so its a great way to introduce new tastes, smells and textures.

And even though Siah is only two, he was a great help. He stirred the cookie batter in between additions and only once stuck the spoon to my shirt….and he dumped all the liquids into the pot after I measured them out and then added the tofu, zucchini and carrots in for me.

Yes, there was mess, but I find that it really wasn’t that big of a mess, took little to no effort to clean up (above and beyond what I would have created in making the cookies and soup), it’s quality time together AND….I’m teaching him from a young age to enjoy cooking; and to cook delicious, healthy foods.

Those things are well worth any amount of mess that the two of us might create together.

Screamfest 2010 – April Edition

I’m sitting here in the dark listening to my boys scream their heads off.

It’s AWESOME!

No really, It’s even better than awesome!

My boys are over tired and flipped out and for some reason they’ve decided to melt completely down. Both of them! At the same time! And Jon has taken the girls to a music practice and I’m alone with the screaming banshees. And it’s every bit as awesome as it sounds.

Well, what I haven’t shared is the back ground, and seeing as all i have is time right now…..let’s git ‘r done.

I went to my exercise class tonight and when I came home just after 5:30pm….there was nothing done for dinner. The girls had just left to pick something up from the store, but they were planning on stopping at the library on their way home. Jon was unbelievably on edge because Jeremy and him had clashed while trying to “do homework”. You’d think that Jon would be the most understanding of Jeremy and his struggles because they deal with the same issues…but if you’d think that….you’d be wrong. Jon gets easily frustrated with Jeremy which is terribly frustrating for me…..then everyone is frustrated. It’s so AWESOME!

*****the screaming is winding down in pitch……I give them another 10 minutes before they are completely SOUND asleep*****

So, I asked about dinner and mentioned the practice tonight and well….he’d totally forgotten and by that point is was too late to make dinner and so…….he ran to get McDonalds……YUCK! How nasty.

Jeremy was in top form tonight and egging Siah on like crazy. It was BRUTAL!

Then Jon and the girls left and the boys pretty much melted down and started crying and asking for a movie and wanting to sleep in my bed, and wanting to take a bath and wanting more food and wanting to play on the computer….and the list goes on and on and on and on. AAAAAWWWWWKKK!

I don’t even really remember the last half hour, except for the crying and pleading and begging and fighting to get jammies on and fighting to brush teeth (I gave up with Siah) and I put them in their beds and they have pretty much almost screamed themselves to sleep.

You only wish that you were in my shoes, I know. I’m not sure how I had the patience for all of this tonight. I didn’t scream or flip out or yell or anything. I just calmly herded them upstairs, put them in their pajamas, attempted to brush teeth, and when that didn’t work, I put them in their beds and sat down in the rocking chair in their room to kill some time.

It’s worked.

Both boys are sound asleep and I’ve got a few things to do so I’m off.

How is/was your Wednesday evening? Better than mine started out to be, I hope!?!

LIttle Bit ‘O This and a Little Bit ‘O That

I’m sitting on the main level of my house killing time listening to my baby scream his head off because he,
“WAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNTTTTTSSSSSS MMMMMMOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMAAAAAAA!” and seeing as he is mostly over the whole measles thingy and I’m so tired of his incessant night waking, we have started to institute the

Back to Bed, Baby! Initiative.

This involves getting up every time he wakes up and putting him back in his own bed. He is in a bed, and so he can easily get out and the biggest issue that we have is not even him coming to our bed in the middle of the night.

The biggest issue is the fact that since the while measles thing, he’s been waking up around 11 or 12 and screaming for no reason that we can figure out. He is quite verbal (as in everyone who hears him speak can’t believe he’s only 2 years old) and his language skills are quite advanced and so if he so desired, he could tell us if there was an issue…..I think that he’s OVERTIRED and can’t even really handle himself. You should see the dark circles he’s currently sporting under his eyes. Poor Baby.

The 11-midnight scream fest comes in a close second in the frustration factor. The number one issue is that he’s decided that regardless of whether we let him sleep with us or if we put him back in to his own bed, around 2am, he wakes up and then is basically restless and awake from 2am until after 5am. This time usually involves TONS of thrashing around. Crying because the covers are on. Crying because the covers are off. Kicking mommy and daddy in the head/stomach/back/whatever happens to be closest to the thrashing feet. Crying because we won’t let him watch a movie. Crying because he wants to go to the bathroom. Crying because he doesn’t want to go to the bathroom. Basically, there is lots of crying and very little sleep.

And so, it is time to learn how to sleep again.

This likely means that we will get even less sleep over the next 3-4 nights as we sleep train him to stay asleep or at the very least, to once again stay on his bed. YUCK! but it will be so worth it by next weekend when we are all sleeping soundly. I hope I’ve not jinxed it by saying that.

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It was my baby girl’s 13th Birthday today. Angelica became a teenager today. I’m still a a bit amazed that I have a teenager and yet….it’s really not that different feeling from yesterday as she was quick to tell me. Time sure flies doesn’t it.

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Jon and Jeremy went to church today and Xani and Siah and I stayed home. Siah’s still officially within the contagious time period and Xani was coughing like a mad woman. We made coffee cake and an egg/hashbrown hash-type breakfast. We cleaned the kitchen and then sewed like crazy.

I’ll be showing you over the next little bit some of the fun things that I made. Xani made 2 pillows and she did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself.

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We’ve filled and hidden the kid’s Easter Baskets and tomorrow morning we’ll have a treasure hunt for the kids. They are looking forward to it and if it weren’t for Geli’s birthday being today we probably would have done them today, but I wanted to make her birthday special. We had her favorite meal of roast chicken, and potatoes, with carrots and asparagus and gravy AND…..Yorkshire Pudding. And she was a very happy girl. We’ve still not given her a gift or even had a cake so I’m not sure how special of a day it was, but ….well…….ya know……it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?

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I’m still trying to come up with a fun activity for us to do as a family tomorrow……ya know, one that involves being trapped inside the house with a contagious child….ya! should be fun! It’s been a long LOOOOOOOOOONG week and I still have a few days left to go.

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The baby has been making the funniest movements. I’ve been bent over the sewing machine and apparently, he didn’t like being squished because he kept trying to streeeeeeeeeeeeetch out and kept kicking out the sides of my body towards my back. It felt so weird, and yet……….TOTALLY AMAZING. Baby movements are the best thing ever.

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Some people from our complex just had a stillborn at 24 weeks. One week shy of when Nathaniel was born. My heart os breaking for them and all they are going through right now. I only hope that I can, in some small way, reach out and be a support or comfort to them. I’m feeling stressed that I’m pregnant, though and am feeling cautious as to how that might make them feel. So many sad conflicting emotions. In some ways, it’s like reliving the whole loss over again. So SO sad!

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Well, after half an hour, it’s quiet and so I’m gonna sign off and head up stairs to bed. I hope you all had a great Easter Sunday with great food and hopefully lots of chocolate…….

Monday Morning Weigh-In

I need to take some pics to add to this post. Hopefully soon….

It’s been a while since I had a Monday morning weigh-in, and I’m pleased to report that as of this morning I weighed 192.4 lbs.

DSC_0270I figure that’s not a terrifying number to get through the holiday’s and end up at.

If you search back….the last time I weighed in, I was sitting right around 191 lbs. So, while I’ve not lost any weight…..the 1 pound weight gain is nothing I’m too worried about.

I’m still exercising a couple of times a week, in fact I’m headed out to class with my sister in an hour.

I’d say that while my weight hasn’t changed drastically, my shape is changing. Change is good, right?

I’ve also wondered if I am a bit anemic as I’ve been feeling so SO tired, recently. Like, ridiculously so….I talked with my Dr. today and I’m upping my iron supplements a bit (my iron was on the lowest end of normal at my last blood test) and hopefully that will help me to feel a bit more energetic. It would be nice if the sun would come out, too! It seems like our winter has finally shown up. Read that as it’s grey and raining, and wet and raining and oh. so. blah…….with more rain. It’s nasty.

I’d post a weekly menu along with this, but I haven’t made one…..yet! I really need to. It makes such a difference in our meals, budget, health and stress levels. Tonight we’re having “chili and rice”. Thank goodness for freezer meals for those days when you’ve been too lazy to cook.

So, how did the holiday’s treat you? Do you have some holiday weight to work off? Any New Years Resolutions regarding exercise and weight loss?

ps. Pic of the oldest and youngest on Christmas morning. He’s just tolerating the camera in his face.

pps. I realize that technically it’s not Monday morning, but that was the original title of this post and I just went with it.

Hangin’ with ma’ boys…(picture heavy)

Jon took the girls and went into town yesterday. The boys and I stayed home.

We decided to take a walk and hit one of the local Starbucks while we were at it.

We left the house and all was good.

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Although, we hadn’t gone more than a few steps when the baby decided that he really wanted to push the stroller….

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As is typical, he is not scared to really voice his opinion……..LOUDLY!

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When I finally took the stroller away from both the boys, they started to lighten up….

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While Jeremy explored the blackberry bushes along the side of the trail…

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Siah checked out the bridge….

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We finally made it to Starbucks and ordered our drinks. Jeremy waited patiently for his…..

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Siah was less patient, but he was thrilled to get his “Blended Apple Juice”

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When Jeremy got tired of the photo shoot, we packed it all up and headed home.

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We picked a few Blackberries as we slowly walked home but we were too busy cramming them in our mouths to stop for any pictures.

With all the crazy business that we’ve been dealing with, it was nice to have a quiet day with just my boys.

Quiet Day at Home

I’m posting, not because I have something amazing to share or some deep thoughts to throw out there, but because I find that if I purpose to write, then it happens and the more it happens the better it is, but this one…..this is just drivel, put out there in an effort to continue on.

It’s just Siah and myself at home right now and so the house is quiet. I wish he were sleeping, but it’s not so…..

We have managed to clear out Jeremy and Siah’s room and I just need to put Siah’s clothes away as they are currently folded and on his change table.

We’ve put our big dresser in our walk-in closet and have all of “that” (clothes and closet) stuff about half put away.

I’ve had two “at home” days in a row and am feeling slightly more settled – which I know is a HUGE false sense of reality thing, but I’m holding onto it as the emotional stability of all of this is just as important to me as the physical reality and so I revel in my feeling more settled-ness.

We still have “oodles” of stuff to do at the old place and so many boxes to unpack and so much stuff to throw out here at the new place. I’m on a garbage binge and it feels SO GOOD!

For your viewing pleasure……….more cell pics…..

p-s

Nothing of Value……

I have absolutely nothing of value to say.

I tried 4 times and wrote 4 different posts actual, whole, REALLY SUCKY posts on that day that Jon guest posted and then I gave up and asked if he had anything.

Siah has slept through the night exactly ONCE in the last 2 weeks and that was Saturday night.

He has had 2 allergic reactions complete with bloody diarrhea, vomiting, screaming, and wicked WICKED, gut bloating, stomach rumbling gas. Throw into the middle of that a wicked virus, that I’m guessing attacked because his immune system was compromised, and you have my life over the last 2 weeks.

I’m so freaking exhausted that I can’t think straight.

I’m losing words…you know when you can see the word in your mind or a picture of the word or an idea of what your talking about and you can’t verbalize it…..ya I sound like a complete idiot right now as I struggle for words and they just aren’t coming.

I’m forgetting things….important things.

I don’t do this. I’m an “on top of it” kind of person. I remember everything. I don’t goof up (much).

I figure that conservatively we have been getting about a total of 3-4 hours of sleep a night and that’s been broken up into hour stretches.

I’m an 8hr of sleep a night person and this feels like it’s slowly destroying me.

On top of that, he is miserable and tired and because of that tiredness and cranky-ness, Siah is an absolute MONSTER during the day. After the good sleep on Saturday night, he was his normal happy self on Sunday morning, but after a too short of an afternoon sleep – he once again crossed over into “grouchy bear” territory.

I think about my bed. I fantasize about sleep. I dream about running away from my children and my home and all the packing and moving and sleeping for 2 weeks. I just want a few consecutive days of sleep straight through in a row. It’s so sad.

I really just want my baby to sleep.

And so, I have no idea when I’ll have something exciting to say or even interesting as I’m certain that this is not interesting reading material. Something amazing might happen today and I might scrape together the effort to share it……….or not!

I LOVE to come here and share, but when I’m this tired I’m aware of what that “something to share” sounds (or reads) like. BORING! And so I’ll be back when I can find my brain or my funny or even if I just get a good bit of sleep…..

…to make the weekend a little bit more fun-ner!

And we woke up this morning to Siah barfing.

I seriously cannot believe it. Well, I guess I can as it’s actually true, but good grief.

And, if the barfing weren’t bad enough he’s got a fever of 102*F.

So, I have no idea what this means for my plans for this weekend, but today – I’ll be staying at home today praying that my little boy feels better.

He has fallen back to sleep right now and I’m hoping that he will sleep peacefully for a while. After the initial barf-fest at 5am, he did come to bed and we snuggled and slept and then he woke at at 6:45am and barfed some more. Fun, Fun!

So, I’ll be spending a greater portion of today snuggling my baby. Which except for the sick part, is not a bad way to spend a day.

Too Fast, Too Much, Too Little, Too Late

I can hardly believe that SIah is almost two years old.

I know that I just did an update post about him, but it’s really hitting hard that my baby is moving on from becoming a baby and that he’s becoming a little boy.

I have nursed him to sleep forever. Yes, I nurse him to sleep and you know what……I do it gladly…well, mostly gladly. And I’m not even really that much upset that it means that I’ve had absolutely NO LIFE for the past almost two years.

I chose to do this. I didn’t have to. I wanted to.

All the “things” that they tell you to do with your kids…I have tried it all. I nursed them. I bottle fed them. I formula fed them. I swaddled them to sleep. I put them to sleep on their backs and on their sides and on their tummy’s and I let them cry it out and I bounced them and rocked them and sang to them…pretty much if its out there….I’ve done it.

I wasn’t trying to create little schizophrenic little babies and so I didn’t do this to one kid all at the same time. It just seemed that for each kid the “experts” recommended something different. I guess that’s what happens when you have kids over a 10 – 12 year span.

But with Siah, I wanted to slow life down and to take the time to really enjoy him. I wanted to cherish every last minute that I could.

Before I just couldn’t slow my life down. I “fit” the babies into my life and now I regret it. I couldn’t wait for them to grow up. I was always pushing and encouraging them to reach the next milestone beacause it meant that I was one step closer to freedom. I was one step closer to getting “my life” back. I was so selfish and immature back then. I wish I could go back in time and have a chat with myself and tell myself that this time with them was so short, that once it was gone – I could never get it back; and that I would regret not just enjoying them where they were at.

Now I know how fast they grow up. I did not know to take advantage of the fact that one child is so easy and that you could “try” to nap or at least rest when they slept because if/when you had a second one…..ya, that possibility is not even anywhere close to being a reality. Now I know that the crazy first year of life is one to hold onto and enjoy…even the cruddy lack of sleep times and the crying times and the all the horrible times……it’s such a short amount of time and when they are 7 or 10 or older – you realize that the time has flown by and you wonder how it happened that you got from there to here.

I don’t believe that this means that you can’t whine about how tough it is….it is tough. MOTHERHOOD IS TOUGH….but try to enjoy every minute that you can, recognizing that it goes all too fast. Now I realize that all those things that I thought were so important – were not; and the times that I resented my tiny little one for getting in the way of “my life”…….well, I can never get back that time, but those opportunities that pop up….well typically a better one comes up later down the road and now I know that “this time” is the most important thing to me.

I chose to take extra time with Siah and now I’m finding that our time and our routines and our schedules are evolving to accommodate a little boy instead of a little baby. We still nurse but even that is changing. He used to fall asleep when he nursed and now, more often than not, he is still awake when he’s done. And Jon’s been putting him to sleep….which is another step of him growing up and moving on. He’s not needing me for everything. I’m getting to adjust to not being his “everything”. It’s another adjustment and yet like all the rest of “this growing up” and transitioning from one phase to another…..I am determined to enjoy it.

I want to be able to enjoy all of the different phases of all of my kid lives. Sometimes it is easier to enjoy the different phases than at other times, but one thing I’m learning is that “this time (the present)” is so fleeting and that once it passes I can never get it back.

I want to live my life so that I have no regrets or at least as little regrets as possible. This requires that I take time to figure out what’s really important to me and what things just aren’t as important. It also requires that I spend time talking to and gleaning information from those who are further down this road of life and who have been where I am at. I can learn from their experiences, from their mistakes and from their successes. Then I can make the best choices for me and for my family. Years from now I will look at my family and see the investment of my time and love and effort and I will never regret that.

Randomness

I sat in the baby’s room last night, listening to him scream and then stop and then scream and then stop and all the while singing and shushing him and desperately hoping that he would just hurry up and “go to sleep” already. Fun Times, I tell you. Fun Times! No, I can’t just leave him in there all alone to scream himself to sleep. One – there is that whole, “life is precious and even more so since I held my son in my arms and then left him at the hospital never to see him again” thing and two he can sort of climb/fall/drop out of his bed and I don’t want him hurting himself. It wasn’t that long and he was stopping and starting which means that he wasn’t really serious….just pissed!

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Jon stayed working late in Vancouver last night and so it was all 4 of the the monkey versus me in the evening struggle. Again with the even more funner times. I don’t think “funner” is a word, let alone the phrase “more funner”, but I’m not changing it.

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TMI warning…….you’ve been warned…..read at your own comfort level….

Remember last month when I talked about this amazing tea and how it had totally helped me out with regards to extremely heavy flow. At that point it hadn’t done anything about the length of the cycle (42 days I think it was last month which I attributed to nursing, but I’m still nursing right now so…….?) Well, I’m so pleased to be able to say that this month I am ROCKIN’ a whole 29days. Yup! I almost didn’t believe it, but it’s kind of hard to ignore the signs. I was pretty certain I had at least another week or two, and when I counted out the days….WOOO HOO! 29 , BABY! And so far, we’re rocking the lighter flow and so this is truly what I’d call, “A Happy Period!” Thank you, Always! And just so you know….I’ve always (pun intended) hated that slogan.

But I am totally happy with my tea and the way that my body is regulating and cycling “normally”. I wasn’t even as “witchy” as I can sometimes be around this time of the month……that’s good too, eh? AND…..it probably explains a little of my “down” mood over the past week….right? Now that I think about it, it would also explain the wicked tummy ache that I had on Sunday….hmmmm?!?!?

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We had the Home Inspector over to the town home yesterday morning and apparently we are buying the best deal on the face of the planet or at least in BC. Two elderly people who have not really lived in the house for the past 14 years, since it was built, are giving us an immaculately cared for place. Little things like the BRAND NEW, installed 2 months ago dishwasher…has never been used because how many dirty dishes can two old people make and really, its faster to just hand wash them. And they are leaving behind their little in perfect working order freezer so we can ditch our energy sucking monster that we can never seem to fill up any how. And the 14 year old water heater, looks like new and only it’s serial number shows it’s true age……honestly…the water heater is the only thing (aside from the roof which we know about) that we might need to replace in the somewhat distant future. The home inspector figured that the water heater might spazz out when actually expected to…you know……work! With 6 people, and at least one load of laundry per day and at least one load of dishes in the BRAND NEW dishwasher…..it’s going to be something that gets a work out….

But…..we are getting a wicked, WICKED deal. And the tools….OH MY GOODNESS….I should let Jon tell you about the tools….some that have never been used and they are leaving them for Jon…He feels like he’s gone to testosterone heaven.

I do believe that we are being given a HUGE blessing in the this town home; and while I’m still struggling with SHARING my property and not just having a stand alone HOUSE….I can see how this is SUCH A BLESSING FOR US in SO MANY ways.

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I’ve not packed one more box since the weekend and a huge part of me is FREAKING OUT ABOUT THAT. Another part says….hey, it’ll all get done, right?

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I’ve gone to work today and left a brutally messy house behind me. I hate to say this, but honestly….I don’t even want to come home because it’s going to be even messier….unless Jon has done something about it and there is nothing that I care to do about it until tomorrow when I have my next “home” day. And so…it sits….unhappy and messy….and causing stress.

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I can’t wait for school to be over because seriously….if we had to go through another month coughing up as much dough as we have this past month for various field trips…..we’d be bankrupt….seriously. Why do they save it up until the last month? Why not spread it out over the year? We are fortunate enough to be able to afford these field trips (times 3 kids), but I GUARANTEE you that there are more than just a few parents who can’t and who are feeling incredibly guilty that they can’t nd so are going into debt so as not to be embarrassed over it. It’s not cool.

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I think that’s all I got for ya right now….but I’ll leave you with two questions?

Are you a sock person or a no sock person? (I’m a “no sock” person, year round)

What is your favorite “summer” colour? (my favourite “summer” color is red…think strawberries, watermelon, cherries)