Photo Shoot

This past weekend I took some family photos for a friend of mine and am pretty happy with the results. There are definitely things I would do differently but I think I did alright for my first stab of formal portraits. Well technically it's my second. I tried one right after I got my camera a couple years ago which didn't go so well. It helped a lot that her family is so cute to work with in the first place. Hopefully they'll be happy with them.






Hmm. Somehow the right side's being cropped a little too much but I don't know how to fix that.

Self-Reliance

I foolishly left a bag of bread too close to the counter edge so David opted to prepare his own breakfast this morning. Hungry anyone?

I solemnly swear

to stop putting disclaimers before all my pictures expressing my disappointment in them. Or to not post any pictures at all because I don't have any I really like. Yes, my photography skills are far from perfect (though slowly improving) but the point of this blog isn't to dwell on that. So here are some pictures from the last month or so that I've been reluctant to share.

Swinging on Swings

Riding in WagonsVisiting the Aquarium

Sliding Down Slides

Exploring the Garden

Playing With Cousins

Driving a Train

Freezer Friendly Recipes

Something I've been trying to do lately is to make at least a couple meals a week that I can freeze half in Ziplock freezer bags for a quick and tasty meal later on. Mostly this has worked great, but of course a few meals haven't frozen and reheated as well as I'd hoped. Here's a couple of recipes that tasted great the first and second time around!

Chicken Fajitas
(In order to have enough to freeze I doubled the recipe and needed 2 skillets. Obviously I froze only the filling and used fresh tortillas and cheese to reheat. These are the BEST fajitas we've ever had!)

Ingredients:
1/2 C olive oil
1/3 C lime juice
1 t sugar
1/2 t salt
1/4 t cumin
1/4 C red wine vinegar
1 t oregano
1/4 t black pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalepeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1/2 red onion, julienned
3 bell peppers assorted colors, julienned
1 1/2 lbs chicken breast, julienned

Instructions:
1. Combine all ingredients into a bowl. Toss well and marinate in the refrigerator for at least a couple hours, preferably overnight. (I only had time for about an hour and they still turned out great.)
2. Drain mixture and saute over medium-high heat until chicken is cooked.
3. Serve with tortillas and cheese.

Pumpkin Black Bean Soup

(This recipe is from a friend's blog and can be viewed with a photo here. She has lots of other promising recipes though this is the only one I've tried so far. I added a couple cups of leftover cooked brown rice which I highly recommend.)

Ingredients:
4 Tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup onion, finely diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 Tablespoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon allspice

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)

2 cans black beans (15 oz each), drained and rinsed

1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes

1 can (16 oz) pumpkin puree

4 cups vegetable or chicken broth

Salt to taste

Instructions

1. In a large pot heat the oil until shiny, then turn to medium low. Add the onion, garlic, cumin, kosher salt, cinnamon, allspice, pepper, and cayenne and stir often until the onion has softened. About 3 to 4 minutes.

2. In a food processor puree the beans, tomatoes, and 2 cups of broth. Add the puree, pumpkin and remaining broth to the pot.

3. Simmer uncovered until thick, stirring often while scraping the bottom, about 30 minutes or until desired thickness. Salt to taste and garnish as desired.

Babysitting Saga Continues

Whew! Our laptop's in the shop right now which has been both a good and bad thing. It makes it harder for me to take and edit photos or update the blog, but it also means that I have more time to spend playing with David and get some Spring cleaning and organizing done.
Since my last post I had yet another babysitter decide that she couldn't watch David anymore. At the same time my office had too many nurses on staff and almost no visits for me so I opted not to not go back. This would mean sticking to a bare-bones budget and make it unlikely we would get anything saved, but I really didn't want to go back to working 12 hour night shifts unless as a last resort.

For a few weeks I was essentially a stay-at-home mom. Then everything changed. One of the full-time nurses left and the office is swamped with visits. There are no plans to replace the nurse unless the census grows so once again I was in the market for a sitter. It's still a huge pain but at least I knew from prior experience not to try traditional daycare centers (most will charge the full week's rate regardless) and went straight to the online classifieds. The first couple of sitters I met with didn't work out (one decided last minute she needed to go back to full-time work and the other just didn't seem like a good fit), but I've finally found what I hope will be a good match.All of my previous providers have been sitters who have had no other clients (though my last one had 2 boys of her own) so this will be our first brush with an actual daycare setting. I have learned from experience though that while it's most convenient for me to hire a part-time nanny to come to the house that David's much happier exploring new environments with novel toys and other children. I've also learned that people don't earn enough from one part-time kid to want to do it long. I know there's a lot of scary stories about home daycare but this woman gave me a list of over 20 parents who gave great references and only watches 2-4 children at a time rather than taking on the max allowed by the state. I'll start back next week and am pretty excited. I really do enjoy my job and relieved that our finances won't be quite so stretched.
And since I haven't posted any David pics in a while I've included some shots of the past month. I don't have any great photos as I have to hurry and whip out a shot before he realizes I've got the camera and races over to grab it.

David and Teddy (his new BFF)

Lessons Learned

I think I prepared for parenthood as well as I possibly could, but I get caught off guard almost daily by things that I never really understood before. Here's 10 of them.

1. How much babies get sick. Since September or so David has been sick ALL OF THE TIME. I've lost count of how many colds and coughs he's had so far. Apparently this is normal once they start spending time around other kids which for David is his 2 days a week at the babysitter's plus at the gym daycare. Some other mom's have assured me that since he's building up his immunity now it won't be as bad when he starts preschool which I really hope is true.
2. Stay-at-home moms don't have any more time to do housework than working ones. I'm not really sure where I fit in the whole working vs stay-at-home mom spectrum. Seeing as I only work 2 days a week I get a little taste of both. It has shocked me to learn that it's much easier to keep the house clean on days that I work even though I spend less time cleaning. Why? Because no one is there to mess it up while I'm at work.
3. The worst part of being a working mom is arranging childcare. Pre-David I naively assumed that the hardest part about working and having a kid would be not having enough time to manage things at home. Yet as I stated earlier, this is not the case. Interviewing and hiring a babysitter is a pain. Finding someone willing to do part-time or off-hours is really a pain. Having your babysitter quit is also a pain. And having to line up 3 sitters in less than a year is a big, fat pain.
4. Lining up a sitter is only the beginning of the pain of childcare. If your child is even mildly sick you cannot expose the other children so you must stay home. If the babysitter or her child is sick you still have to stay home. However if you are sick you must still go to work because you have used up all your sick time on other people.
5. It is quarter to 5:00. You should have finished with your last patient at 4:00 but she needs much more than you thought and you are the only one there to help. If you leave you abandon a patient in need but your babysitter needs to be somewhere at 5:30. Your husband could leave work a little early but he's still an hour away. Can you see why childcare really is the WORST part of being a working parent?
6. Pre-pregnancy weight and pre-pregnancy size are 2 very different topics. I've lost all my pregnancy weight plus another 5 lbs but I still can't wear my skinny jeans from before and no amount of sit-ups can control that extra tummy flab.
7. Mom cliques would put junior high students to shame. I spent a good part of last summer taking David to the park being shunned by the other moms that gather there. David was too young. I was too old (around here the average first-time mom is several years younger than me). Sorry, our playgroup's getting too big... And don't even get me started on the (not so) great mommy wars surrounding every parenting decision from organic foods to carseat types.
   
8. Parenting books make problems like sleep issues and discipline sound very simple and straightforward. They are wrong. Very, VERY wrong.
9. Without even asking for it I have accumulated enough advice to last me for a lifetime, well-balanced advice too. Every time I get told I do too much of one thing someone else chimes in that I don't do it near enough. I don't think I've ever gotten advice that hasn't been contradicted by someone else. It's also wonderful how even complete strangers are willing to help me out in this regard.
10. Sleeping through the night is a process that takes YEARS. Obviously I had some idea that newborns are not famous for giving parents lots of shut eye. Yet I was under the distinct impression that after those first rough months of nighttime feedings that babies then learn to sleep through the night and problem solved. Well technically that is true. But then a week later something throws off your schedule and you start over. And over. And over. And over. Sickness, vacations, missed naps, sleeping in the car, bad dreams, not getting to bed on time, growth spurts and about a billion other things can set you back for several days to a week.
    

Auld Lang Syne

As I reflect back on this past year I realize that in one sense not much has happened. Derek started a new job of course and I dropped my hours to part-time, but mostly we have stayed close to home and taken great lengths not to veer too much from our day-to-day routine. No exotic vacations or great adventures to report, and since David was born at the end of 2008 no new babies either.

In another sense though this was the year that everything was new. Or at least because we (our little family) is so new everything else is too. Each day and everything contains some new discovery, some milestone and some first. First foods, first steps, and first words. David's first Spring, Summer, and Fall, and in a way mine too. After all, David is not the only one of us to learn and grow. Happy New Year and best wishes to all for 2010.