Newborn baby musings

What is it about baby cries that are contagious? It's like a signal to all other babies within earshot to simultaneously freak out for no reason. My sister's 10 week old and my 7 week old are currently active participants in this vicious cycle of contagious crying. I love my children and my niece, I mean love them like I never even thought possible but endless crying during the day on both of their parts makes me want to smoke a cigarette.

Apparently the "newborns sleep a lot" thing is genetic and both of my kids have not had it. My son sleeps in 20 minute intervals throughout the night and that's only if swaddled up so tight he can't move, and does most of his sleeping during the day when my daughter is awake. How fun. Thank the Lord for my mother for coming over to help with them.

However, while running on no sleep, having not showered since Lord only knows when, and having not changed my contacts in a week my kids can do one cute thing and it makes everything all good again. My son likes to be awake around 3 am and spends almost 15 minutes smiling and laughing at something while I am holding him. I wouldn't miss those moments for anything. And as much as I gripe about no sleep, I love that he nurses to sleep and actually needs me and only me most of the day.

All in all, newborns are a good thing.

Resolution #4 Become a better money saver

Yes, I skipped #3.  Yes, I have already messed up that small string of daily posts that I had going.  Yes, I have other stuff going on and luckily can restart.  Thank the Lord there are more than 30 days in this year... not all is lost.  I decided that #3 didn't necessitate it's own blog post since it's fairly straight forward. 

On to #4 - become a better money saver.  First, let me say that I dislike talking about money.  I talk about money when necessary with my husband or my parents but rarely with anyone else.  My husband and I are blessed with jobs that afford us a comfortable lifestyle for a nominal amount of stress yet saving money has been a struggle for me for 29 years and for the both of us the 5ish years that we have been together.  I will say that we have awesome intentions.  I am the master of making plans.  My personality dictates that I need lists and plans, etc but have an issue always following through with this one issue. 

Because my son is 6 weeks old and thinks that it is cool to party all night I have been watching a lot of late night... strike that... over night television.  A lot of this includes different exercise programs promising me a Brazillian's butt, abs from that blonde chick from the View, and several different kitchen appliances that basically promise to do the cooking for me (which would be awesome if it was really true!)... however a lot of it also includes Suze Orman.  The other night Oprah decided that someone else besides herself could have a show on her network and had Suze Orman teaching something that looked like a money conference.  During one of the six(!) episodes of this conference she stated that she recommends at least eight months worth of living expenses in savings as an emergency fund.  Yikes.  Just doing some rough math in my head, we are SUPER behind that goal.  I can make a thousand excuses for why we don't have that much in savings and, of course, I could make ten plans to have that much by the end of the year but I would really like to actually accomplish this goal and not just say it aloud. 

I think that I am going to do a compounding plan this year where during one month I help save money doing one item, then during the next month I do that saving money task and a new one.  Should make it easier and less painful then trying to implement like ninety new tasks all at once.  My first month's goal will be to start using more coupons.  Not like the crazy coupon people that you see on TLC now... I don't need a stockpile of sodas and boxed cereals.  I would just like to be more diligent about using coupons for items that we are actually going to buy.  Luckily the stores that we shop at that have loyalty cards allow you to load coupons onto those cards and also use manufacturer coupons. 

I am going to take some time during this week to try to research some of the crazy couponing and see if there is something that I can utilize for our everyday usage.  Let me know if you use coupons or have any tips. 

Resolution #2: Utilize the parts of Once a Month Cooking that work for our family

Let's just get it out of the way now and say that I have an unhealthy obsession with Pinterest.  If you have ever been on it, you understand - here is my page http://pinterest.com/saraprice/.    Feel free to follow.  I get on tangents where I pin weird stuff but mostly foods that I want to try, stuff for my children or arts and crafts ideas.  Side note: After my few posts about my resolutions I plan to start a daily post of "this is neat" type entries.  Mostly from things that I find online or see on Pinterest and want to share with more than my followers.  If you haven't been on Pinerest, you could never understand and should join.  I will send you an invite, if interested.  Now that we got that settled let me also say that this entire idea was found on Pinterest on this woman's blog:  http://pregnant.livejournal.com/17071127.html

Let me go back:  I have been bugging my husband since we got pregnant with Silas that I would like to do some sort of OAMC (Once a Month Cooking) to start before we had the baby so I wouldn't have to worry about cooking when I was on maternity leave.  Based on how Isabella was as a newborn and what I have found to be the case with newborns they are not fun and tend to scream/cry A LOT so I was fairly confident that if I had another "high needs" child that I would be uninterested in my husband coming home from work and having one of those "what do you want for dinner?" conversations.  He refused every time to even entertain the idea.  There was also a reason... and looking back there was always a good reason.  Reason #432 why I love my husband is he sees how we live and is able to be honest about how things will work in the future based off of our past experiences.  I have a tendency to have a more rose colored glasses-type review of our past when it comes to making decisions about our future.  We, as a couple, have a tendency to buy food at the grocery store with the intentions of cooking and eating at home and, in the past, have still eaten out instead of eating that food at home.  He knew that if we spent $200-$300 on food to prep, possibly cook, and freeze that it would end up getting freezer burned or not being eaten until after it's freezer shelf life expired.  And he was right... we would have. 

Then he found that blog post on Pinterest.  Of course, he was on Pinterest on accident looking around for car parts or naked ladies *wink* and not for recipes or anything that the website should be used for.  He was instantly enamored with this idea and brought it up to me one night.  I will say that our grocery trip cost more and made more portions on some dishes than originally stated but all in all worked out the same.  We have made and frozen all dishes except the enchiladas, but have only actually tasted two of them so far so I am not fully comfortable sharing them yet until I taste what was made.  Reviews of her recipes and our version of the recipes coming soon. 

I tell you all of that to tell you that one of my resolutions this year will be to utilize the parts of OAMC that work for our family.  We like having fully cooked, or almost fully cooked meals in the freezer that just have to be warmed up.  We like having stew, soup, chili, sauce type meals that you can freeze in freezer bags flat to save space.  I like to cook my meals over the course of a few days instead of one big cooking spree.  This prolongs the agony, so to speak, but leaves me overall in a better mood and more apt to be a more pleasant person once the meals are cooked.  One thing that I will change next time is to do all of the "prep" work the day before, i.e. chopping veggies, browning and portioning out meats, etc as that makes the actual cooking go a lot faster. 

Any other tips and tricks from once a month cookers?

Resolution #1: Have more patience today than I did yesterday

Patience can be defined, after a simple Google search as, "The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset."  It sounds simple, right?  But it's not.  At least not for me.  I am, by my nature, not the *most* impatient person in the world... however that person would look at me sometimes and go "Damn, can she just chill?" 

I have read books on how to be more patient.  I know my triggers.  And yet, I have been unable to change in previous years.  Before kids and marriage, I never really cared that I wasn't patient.  Part of that impatience is useful at my job because I can accomplish tasks faster and since a lot of my job doesn't rely on actions of others than it isn't necessary to show my most patient self.  At home, my dogs didn't care that I wasn't the most patient of people... they loved me anyways.  Now, since getting married and especially since having kids, I feel like it is more important than ever for me to have more patience.  My husband deserves for me to be chill and not be so upset when things don't exactly go my way immediately.  My kids deserve for me to let them play as loud as they want or do something wrong multiple times before figuring out the best way to accomplish a task.  I owe that to them. 

I understand that this resolution is probably considered cheating since there is really no measurable goal.  There is no way to qualify or quantify the results that I will get from this resolution.  Strike that... my happiness, my children's happiness, and my husband's happiness will be the proof that this resolution is in the process of being accomplished.  But it will be a work in progress.  It IS a work in progress. 

So how will I work through this resolution?  Some people would suggest deep breathing... some would suggest counting to 10.  I have a different idea... During my preparation for my two labors, I learned from multiple sources the importance of using affirmations and belief suggestions to remind your brain that you could accomplish a certain task (delivering a healthy baby as naturally as possible in that case.)  I will utilize that same philosophy here.  I wasn't sure of what I was going to use until I was typing this post.  As I have been writing "slow to anger" has continually popped up into my head.  I will take this as a hint from God that I should use that.  I will use that belief suggestion to remind myself of this resolution anytime that I feel myself getting out of control. 

I am using this as a note and a reminder to follow up in March with how these resolutions are going.  Until then wish me luck that a more patient me emerges starting today.       

Non-resolutions

So I am sure that everyone has experienced this... December 15-ish, if not before, you start to get nervous thinking about your "resolutions" for the following year.  Almost everyone will include at least one about "Exercise more" or "Lose x amount of weight".  Most people do really well in January, possibly on into February.  Gym memberships *and* attendance at said gym are up, I can imagine, like 100 fold in the beginning of the year.  Then slowly you start to get busy.  You start to make excuses like you are too tired after work.  You are too tired before work.  You forgot your gym clothes.  You took the stairs twice today and that should count as exercise.  The next time you think about it a month has gone by, then two months, and then all of a sudden you can't even remember when you saw the inside of the gym yet.  You are not alone.  You are certainly not the only one who fails at resolutions and goals that they make at the beginning of the year. 

Why is it that we fail at goals, wishes and wants for ourselves that we are SO passionate about at one time during the year?  Why is it that at the beginning of the year we have so much faith in ourselves and our abilities that we are willing to stake our future year's worth of happiness on the smallest statements?  It seems as if we are doomed to fail if we claim those statements as goals that we are interested in achieving.  It's like we, as humans, need our subconscious to trick us into achieving these goals by not putting them out there in the open.  That, perhaps, we need something like subliminal advertising to help us out with these resolutions as most people during the year will not keep even one of their resolutions.  I know that, in the past, most of the time by May I would have forgotten what any of my resolutions were from the beginning of the year. 

This year I decided that I wasn't going to participate in this "tradition" of making a decision at the beginning of the year that I was going to fail at throughout the year.  Instead, I am reviewing my life now, in February, for little things that I would like to either change or start doing that are manageable, because let's be reasonable... I have a husband... I have 4 children, 2 of which live with me full time and are under 2... I have a full time job that I love enough to want to spend more than 40 hours at... I don't have time for "change the world" type resolutions. 

However, I *do* have time for the following resolutions:

1. Have more patience today than I did yesterday
2. Utilize the parts of Once a Month Cooking that work for our family
3. Write a blog post everyday for at least 30 days
4. Become a better money saver

I am going to attempt to start #3 today.  I will utilize one blog post each to explain the four and their importance and significance to me in my life today.

 

Cooking pumpkins

This year I wanted to do something super special for my awesome husband so I decided to make him a few pumpkin recipes made from "real" pumpkin, not the can stuff.  I wasn't sure how to go about doing this but I got A LOT of help from this woman's entries:  http://www.pickyourown.org/pumpkinpie.php

I will admit that I didn't fully explain my plans in advance to my husband, so he was a bit surprised when he came home to 8 pumpkins in the kitchen.  I will admit that I was originally intimidated with the thought of roasting and using pumpkin in this fashion but it turned out to be a lot easier than I originally imagined.  There does need to be a disclaimer here that while the steps of this process are not difficult, they are time consuming and this process is definitely not for everyone.  I think that everyone should do it once just to taste the difference between roasting your own pumpkin and using the can stuff.  I will also justify that I only used what are called "pie pumpkins" or "sugar pie pumpkins".  Supposedly you can use the normal jack-o-lantern pumpkins but I heard that they can be stringy and I didn't want to mess this up.  I got my pumpkins for 3 for $5 or 4 for $5 depending on the size and didn't have any issue paying that considering the amount of yield that we received. 

Now on with the show.  I bought my pumpkins from my local farmers market.  I have seen them at my local grocery store but not a lot of them and not consistently.  I didn't do any voodoo magic to try and figure out if they were ripe or able to be used.  I just picked 8 of them originally.  I saw originally because I am mildly ashamed to admit that I repeated this process again a few weeks later and came home with like 15.  Because of that shameful behavior there are approximately 40 cups of cooked pumpkin in my freezer right now.  If there happens to be a threat of the Apocalypse soon and you need pumpkin, you know where to go. 

Below are the steps that I followed.  You can adjust to fit your situation. 

1. Wash and dry your pumpkin.  Use soap.  I just used my dish soap.  Since you are not eating this part then it isn't necessary to get it totally spotless - your main focus is to remove dirt, mud, etc. 
2. Cut the pumpkin in manageable size pieces.  I cut mine in half.  Actually my husband was very helpful and cut ours in half since they can be quite tough before they are cooked.  Think sweet potatoes except like 15 times as big. 
3. Scoop out all the gunk from the inside.  At this point you can separate the seeds and roast them if you would like.  I also took great care to remove most of the stringy grossness as I thought that this would help with the pureeing part later. 
4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil and bake on 350 for anywhere from 45 to 60 minutes.  The skin of the pumpkin will get brown but don't worry - this will just add more flavor to your puree.  You are looking for the flesh of the pumpkin to be easily penetrated with a fork, knife, etc. 
5. Once the pumpkin is done, remove from the oven and allow them to cool enough to where you can handle them.  The pumpkin will feel just short of 4 billion degrees at this point and I have burned myself multiple times trying to rush this step.  Normally I wait 10-15 minutes because I still want it to be warm but you could allow the pumpkins to completely cool and still be fine. 
6. Scoop out all the flesh of the pumpkins into a food processor and puree until smooth.  This will not take that long to get it smooth but you will need multiple batches. 
7. **This step might not be necessary depending on your pumpkin or what you will be cooking.**  Pumpkins by nature are watery.  Once ours were pureed we put them in a strainer or a cheesecloth and drained off a lot of liquid.  I knew that we were going to be baking bread or pies with ours and didn't want too much liquid in either recipe.  You will be amazed at how much liquid you can get from pureed pumpkin. 
8. At this point your pumpkin is ready to be used or frozen.  We used our Food Saver machine and saved them in 2-3 cup bags clearly marked with the date and the amount. 

 In following posts I will share some of our favorite recipes using this pumpkin.  In my opinion, this is the ONLY way to go now that I have cooked with this pumpkin.  I think that you can definitely tell the difference between cooking your own pumpkin and the pumpkin in a can.