12 things you may not know about me and my preemie...

1. Just because Alex was a decent weight at birth (5 lbs 8 oz) does not mean he didn't miss out on 6 weeks of development in the womb.

2. Size really isn't the most important part in thinking about preemies.....though weight checks and percentile grids are something I see quite a bit of...especially the first several months. Three different percentile grids to be exact: one for preemies at their real age compared to other term babies, one for preemies at their adjusted age compared to term babies, and one for preemies compared to other preemies.

3. Nursing a premature baby is extremely challenging. They are not born being able to eat and it's a tough learning curve. It almost always requires a lot of pumping for Mom. I wouldn't say that nursing has been enjoyable for me (so much pumping, latching issues, clogged ducts, etc.)but it's important to me that Alex get breast milk so I do it anyways and I'm grateful it's worked out thus far.

4. I've donated the equivalent of 11 gallons of breast milk so far to 5 different babies/moms that needed it for a variety of reasons. Read more about milk sharing here. I guess I'm a 21st century wet nurse and I like being able to help other babies that need the liquid gold.

5. I am not supposed to leave Alex in a day care/nursery setting until RSV and flu season are over. So yes, I'm probably an over-protective mom but I'm also following doctors orders. RSV could be very dangerous for Alex to get and would likely require hospitalization.

6. Alex gets a monthly RSV vaccine called synagis. I was hesitant, for some reason, to let him have this....but kiddos born before 35 weeks, in the right season, and with older siblings (3 for 3 here) are at higher risk. After Mateo's respiratory infection I'm really glad Alex was vaccinated.

7. Alex will be behind on developmental milestones. Six weeks in utero cannot be made up with 6 weeks in the real world. A home nurse comes out through a free program every other month to do a weight and developmental check so I really try not to worry about his development because any concerns would be noted by the checks. I still do worry occasionally, though...

8. Even though I never particularly wanted more than 2 kids and even though I really don't enjoy the baby stage too much, I still mourn that I will not be able to have more kids....


9. I'm not completely anti social but bringing Alex around lots of people when he was brand new was just not something I was willing to do- even for a baby shower. It's just not worth it.

10. I wash my hands about 60 times a day.

11. Alex is perfectly and wonderfully made by a God who loves him and has great plans for his life (Psalm 139) and (Jeremiah 29:11).

12. Alex has the best smile....and the cutest mohawk.

I unaplogetically love cloth diaprs.

It's true. I use cloth diapers. And I like it. Not only does it save us a ton of money but I love creating less trash, too. Yes, it takes more effort to wash and prepare the diapers but I've found I don't mind the prep too much and it's well worth it. Especially since I am a stay at home mom, my "salary" comes in the form of how I save money and utilize our resources.
Mateo usually loves helping me fold diapers. I think he learned his colors that way and also how to fold in half and stack things lol. I am not going to teach you about cloth diapers in this post. But a favorite is BumGenius one size diapers because they have never leaked for us and will fit from newborn through potty training (7-35 pounds supposedly). So you are only buying one size of diaper. We didn't have too many of these with Mateo- the are a bit more expensive, but have a lot more with Alex and they are nice. With Mateo we did a different version- "Thirsites" covers and good old cloths.
Bum Genius Diapers...
These are the BumGenius one size diapers and there are three adjustment sizes. The blue is on the biggest and the yellow on the smallest. My 2 year old is potty trained but we still put him in a diaper at night so this is an easy way to do it. We also never bought any pull ups. Those are priced ridiculously! I had considered buying some washable pull ups but ended up just using cloth until underwear.

There are all sorts of estimates on how much the average per child costs to diaper. This of course ranges from how much you pay for your diapers (Are you a crazy couponer or a Pampers at full price customer?) and of course how long you use diapers...probably 2-3+ years to some extent. For three years it could be $3,000 one source said. I found that hard to believe...but either way you are going to spend a lot.

Another nice thing about cloth is that you can reuse them for a second or third child. Even if you bought 20 Bum Genius diapers at FULL PRICE (Which I wouldn't do)...you will still only spend $360. Total. If you go with Thirsties that's cheaper but maybe not as convenient.

For Alex I have Bum Genius diapers and some Econobum (cheaper brand similar in style to Thirsties) diapers that were only $5 each!

And there is something satisfying about a clean stack of cloth diapers ready for the changing table....

So to sum up...cloth diapers are cute, have less chemicals, are cheaper, and help me create less waste. Win win. I wash them 2-3 times per week, have not noticed any rise in water bills, and spend about $6 a year on detergent.


Sorry if this post makes no sense. I'm holding a fussy sick 6 month old who won't sleep. Will probably edit later haha.

Design on a Dime...puzzles

So it's no secret that I'm not a decorator. With limited free time and money it is just not on the top of my to-do list. Aaron and I like a clean and organized home that's functional and welcoming but having everything look like a Martha Stuart magazine just isn't on our priority list or in my talents. Maybe someday. That said, if Mark Brunetz from Clean House offered to come decorate our house for free I would NOT turn him down!

Anyways- we moved Mateo to his new room last June around his birthday and I really hadn't put much on the walls. Since my 2 1/2 year old is obsessed with putting together jigsaw puzzles at the moment, I decided to glue together some of his 24 piece puzzles and hang them up like posters.

Mateo's little work table that has become his "puzzle table".

I found some modge podge in the basement and glued the puzzles together over some wax paper on a cookie sheet. I did need to crack the window!


The modge podge glue gives it a nice glossy finish and I used used a small paintbrush that I had in my teaching supplies....though a bigger one would have been easier. My bottle of modge podge had a price tag of $5 and I barely made a dent in it. Once the front dried I also did the back. Not for looks but just for stability. "Puzzle glue" is the same thing.

My mom gave me the idea of gluing thin wood on the back so one Saturday morning Aaron and Mateo took a "man field trip" to the hard wood store and found some perforated board that would be suitable. It cost $6 for a large sheet and he only used about a third of the board for four puzzles.
This is what the back looked like. The board will keep it from warping. I have glued large puzzles together before and it's always hard to find a frame the right size- so this was a good alternative. Aaron used gorilla glue to attach the board to the puzzle and some tiny nails to attach the "self leveling picture hanger" (that metal thing with the ridges ;)

Clifford!

Mickey Mouse!

Cars!

Winnie the Pooh

So now Mateo has 4 "Puzzle Posters" on his wall that he put together himself and have some of his favorite characters. And it cost just a few dollars plus the puzzles themselves.

Make it yourself: Beans

I didn't know pinto beans came in a can until college when my roommate Renee was making burritos one night. I was mesmerized! Really? I had no idea! I guess I was a little bit naive lol.

Growing up my mom always made "frijoles" by buying the dry beans and cooking them on the stove in this very pot (which has been passed on to me :) It's a very special pot to me and I love each and every crack. I took it out for this picture and when Aaron walked in he said, "Oooh, frijoles?". I had to break it to him that it was just the pot. But he does love my homemade beans.

I often make beans in my crock pot as well. I have found it to be cheaper and healthier and ridiculously easy. Over the last few years I have expanded my homemade bean cooking to include black beans and garbanzo beans. And now that we have a deep freezer I can make large batches to freeze and pull out at my leisure. Below is how I make garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas):

First I sort the beans. This was always my job as a kid and it's important because occasionally you will find a pebble! This is not nearly as common now that I buy them in the bulk section and they are sifted a bit more, but especially if you buy 5 or 10 lb bag of dry beans. Anyways, sort the beans and rinse them in a strainer.

I soak them overnight in my crock pot (or regular pot if I'm going to cook them on the stove). Cover with plenty of water as the beans will swell up a LOT. You could also choose to soak them during the day and cook them overnight (which is what I happened to do with this batch).



Come morning time the beans will have absorbed most of the water. Rinse them again. Then put them back in the crock pot fully covered with fresh water (or broth). Cook on low all day (about 8 hours). The crock pot option is especially nice if you're at work all day or if you're going to be out and about. Traditionally pinto beans in my family were cooked with a ham hock bone. You can cook them plain in water to be seasoned later, add salt, broth, etc. However you want. I cooked these garbanzo beans plain with a little sea salt. Tomorrow I'm going to make pinto beans with some homemade chicken broth.
8 hours later you have a huge amount of garbanzo beans. [If cooking on the stove top you would simmer on med-low for about 2 1/2 -3 1/2 hours...adding additional liquid as needed]


What am I going to do with all these garbanzo beans you ask?

Freeze them in Tupperwares. The smaller containers are just the right amount to add to a salad. The larger containers are just the right amount to make a large batch of hummus. My WinCo receipt said all these beans cost $2.70 and it will last us a long time! Make sure to leave in some of the liquid when you freeze them. You can drain it later.

I also love keeping pinto beans in the freezer to pull out for breakfast burritos, 7 layer burritos, etc. Black beans are especially good in rice bowls (like Yumm bowls), as a side dish with enchiladas, in salads, and more.

Though you may not believe it from some of these posts, I don't like spending a ton of time in the kitchen making dinner. I much prefer to prepare stuff ahead of time. Beans are one of those things that are easy to make ahead of time, freeze and defrost well, and are very inexpensive.

Now...if I can only convince my 2 1/2 year old that beans are delicious....then I will be a happy camper :)

My plump preemie

Alex has officially gained 10 pounds since birth. He's now a beautiful 15 1/2 pound ball of mostly smiles. I love his chubby cheeks and fat rolls.

I'm very thankful for this baby. We had a rough start with this little guy (Preemie, Colic, Daytime insomnia, inability to fall asleep, terrible reflux, etc. etc.) I wouldn't go as far as to say things are easy, but they have gotten much easier. He sleeps at night and he smiles at me. Both those things help a LOT haha.

I know very well that both my babies are little miracles and although I hate c sections and ICUs, they are what saved my babies who may not have survived otherwise. I think of Mary giving birth to Jesus outside in a barn. I'm sure if they had to perform a "C section" back then that the moms probably didn't have high survival rates. Scary thought.

Anyways, I am every thankful for my little guys. Hard to think that they will someday outgrow me. Alex' biggest struggle right now is his reflux (which he is on medication for). It's a very frustrating condition. Besides going through burp clothes (and beach towels) by the handful, he's a terribly finicky nurser, and it's harder for him to keep food down. I'll admit that I don't even bother changing my clothes anymore when I get spit up on. It's just not worth it most of the time and I have so few clothes that actually fit right now anyways.

We had an appointment with the lactation nurse today. Because of all his spitting up and the fact that his weight gain has slowed down a bit, she suggested I feed him every 2 hours during the day now. And go back to pumping twice a day. And wake him up once at night to eat. Ick. If she knew how hard it is to get this boy to fall asleep- she wouldn't dream of waking him up! We'll see what new plan we devise. We may just add a few extra ounces to his "vitamin bottle*" at bedtime. I was just getting excited about sleeping and not having to pump during the night. --sigh-- Oh well. Right now he wakes up on his own around 5 am so I am not going to wake him. But...it's all worth it for this face:


Psalm 59:17 NLT
O my Strength, to you I sing praises, for you, O God, are my refuge, the God who shows me unfailing love.


*Preemies are recommended to have an iron supplement because they are not born with the iron stores a term baby would gain those last weeks (or months). At 6 months or once they start solid foods it can usually be eliminated if desired. Since the vitamin tastes really bad, we've been mixing it in about an ounce or so of pumped milk.

Crazy Crayons!

This weekend my mom and I made the coolest crayons I'd ever seen before. Hands down! Here is what they looked like!When I was teaching, the recycling coordinator for the district would come out and teach a lesson on re-use to classes that requsted it. She would bring broken crayons that different classrooms had collected and the kids would take the paper off and put them in mini muffin pans. She'd bake them in a portable oven and the kids would get disk-shaped "Crazy Crayons" as she called them. They loved it. My mom recently mentioned she'd seen heart shaped crayons in some magazine and I remembered I had two heart-shaped silicone ice cube trays that I never used. So we decided to give it a shot.

I lucked out and ended up finding a whole box of "naked crayons" with my teaching supplies so we had plenty to choose from!We picked out all the reds, pinks, purples, and whites for Valentine's Day. We cut the crayons into small pieces and then filled up the small ice cube trays. We "baked" them at 230 degrees and TA DA!!!!
They popped out very easily from the silicone tray (though I would not choose to use the tray for ice any more lol. I'll reserve it for crafts.)



Mateo and I had fun packaging some of these up to give away to friends and cousins and also kept a few for ourselves. I will now be on the lookout of other fun-shaped ice cube trays that could go in the oven. I envision many more "Crazy Crayons" to come. AND...what a great way to re-use those broken crayon pieces instead of throwing them away.

Revolutionizing snack time.

For some reason during the last 6 or so months I've begun to enjoy baking. I never made time for it before but enjoy making interesting and healthy foods for Mateo. It started with trying all these fairly healthy muffin recipes from weelicous.com. There were sweet potato muffins and carrot apple coconut muffins and a plethora of others. I liked the idea of adding in healthy veggies and fruits for my picky eater. They freeze well and are easy to pull out for a healthy breakfast or snack for Mateo (or me!).

Lately I've been learning how to do a few more traditional snacks that not only contain ingredients that I can pronounce and already have (most of) in my cupboards but they're also fun, healthier, and easy to freeze. Besides the time factor I like to double batches to freeze extra because....to be honest....I hate doing dishes. My least favorite chore and of course I often feel like I am doing dishes all day long. Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, etc. So it's really no more work to double the batch because I only have to take out all of the ingredients and clean up everything once.

The last couple of years I've also really tried to cut back on unhealthy food addivies like artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, MSG, etc. All of these have real ingredients in them and are much cheaper than buying a natural snack version.

A few of the snacks I've made recently are:

Oatmeal on-the-go bars (I added chocolate chips to mine :) Picture coming soon. These are the easiest of the recipes and I think they'd be the easiest/most doable for working moms though any of them could be a weekend project with the kiddos. The other three require making a dough and do take a little longer but this one you literally just throw all the ingredients in a big baking dish and cook it. Then cut apart and freeze. Super easy. You can defrost them over night or just in the microwave when you want one. You can choose your own ingredients as far as nuts, dried fruit, chocolate, etc. are concerned too. Mateo doesn't love these, unfortunately, but I do. I haven't given up that he will learn to like oatmeal...

Whole Wheat Cheddar Crackers (like goldfish crackers)

I happened to have a tiny fish cookie cutter but with a double batch of this somewhat crumbly dough I ended up doing mostly bigger crackers.

I used a large teddy bear cutter for the rest and froze quite a few of these cheesy teddy bear crackers. I LOVE that this recipe only has cheese, whole wheat flower, and butter. That's it! NO additives like MSG or even salt. To spice things up at snack time I put some spreadable cheese (like laughing cow or whipped cream cheese) and some flax seeds for the "sprinkles".
These were so good! Though I do admit they are a little bland...probably because there is no salt in the recipe. I suppose you could add it but I like them how they are. I think I will be eating these more often than Mateo.

Graham Crackers (which we call cookies b/c Mateo will eat anything that's called a cookie)These were so tasty that it was a little hard to freeze some of them because I could have eaten them all. Next time I might just cut them into rectangles like traditional graham crackers, but Grandma and I turned this into a project for Mateo... who loves to use cookie cutters and wear his apron and chef hat. My mom made up some simple powdered sugar frosting with cinnamon too but you could eat them plain like crackers.

Animal Crackers (also called cookies at our house haha)

Mateo loved eating cookies in different animals shapes. And of course, he enjoyed biting limbs off the animals. These froze really nicely and make a good snack with some fresh fruit or a smoothie. I love these myself, too!

Next one to learn: Chocolate Chip Granola Bars