baby fat

I’m finally feeling recovered from my c-section. My recently dislocated shoulder is giving me a bit of grief–all the baby rocking and lifting Maya isn’t great for a shoulder that hasn’t fully healed. But aside from that I’m feeling like I really want to kick start the weight loss from what I gained during pregnancy and re-sculpt my body, because I used to be really fit! I love working out and I’ve missed it.

But when you’re stuck at home with two kids, what are you supposed to do? Well, my sister who is a personal trainer, boot camp instructor, and fitness guru, has directed me to the Bodyrock website. Okay, I know it’s kind of soft porn because of the hot girls with big boobs bouncing around (and I just lost all my male readers who are now watching Bodyrock TV…), but the workouts are actually excellent. The people on the site really know what they’re doing and the best part is that you can do all the workouts in your own home, and they’re pretty short which means I can squeeze them into my day. There are loads of archives to scroll through so that you can target the areas that you most want to work on. I watched a host of videos yesterday and then my dear sweet hubby let me go to the gym for an hour to get a quick workout in, and I put to work a lot of the stuff I’ve gleaned from the site. I don’t have much weight to lose after baby, but I have a LOT of re-toning to do as things got stretched out the 2nd time around in ways that I don’t even want to think about.

I know that I won’t have much time to exercise once my mat. leave is over, so I’m doing my best now to develop good eating and exercise habits that will put me in the kind of shape I want to be in when this blissful year of being a full-time mom is over!

Hot Chocolate Addict

She’s in love with hot chocolate. In particular, the ones at Starbucks. Yesterday she went up to the till and announced to the server, “I want a kids hot chocolate”, and then she sat down at a table all on her own, leaving me to deal with payment of course. Soon after she devoured her treat. Part of me feels guilty allowing her such a junk-foody, decadent drink, and the rest of me adores watching her pure enjoyment!

Possession

On the car ride home with a plate full of fresh baked cookies from Maya’s amazing daycare:

“Mom, don’t eat my cookies, okay?”

“Okay, I won’t eat your cookies.”

“Okay mom, you can eat your food. You can eat zucchinis and mushrooms and celery, but not MY cookies, okay?”

“Alright. Why don’t you want me to eat your cookies?”

” ‘Cause ’cause I want to eat them, they’re for me. I don’t want Sosuke to eat my cookies.” (Sosuke is a character from the movie Ponyo)

“How could Sosuke eat your cookies?”

“Well, I just don’t want him to eat them, and I don’t want daddy to eat them, and I don’t want Ponyo to eat them, and I don’t want Ponyo’s dad to eat them, and I don’t want Sosuke’s dad to eat them. I don’t want ANYONE to eat my cookies.”

“Okay, no one else will eat your cookies.”

“And I don’t want grandma to eat them, and I don’t want Opa to eat them, and I don’t want…”

And well… you get the idea, the list went on for a VERY long time. One thing is certain, we don’t have to worry about our daughter’s ability to be assertive.

buckwheat & mickey mouse

Maya’s newest favourite food is pancakes. She’s especially fond of the Mickey Mouse variety that I have resurrected from my own childhood memories of Sunday morning breakfasts with my family. Because my husband and I have to avoid wheat and dairy (due to food intolerances & allergies) I’ve devised a fabulous wheat and dairy free recipe that also happens to be sugar free!

Buckwheat-Sorghum Blueberry Pancakes

Ingredients:

1 c. buckwheat flour

3/4 c. sorghum flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. xanthum gum

2 lg. eggs

1 and 3/4 c. soy or other milk

Fresh or frozen blueberries

Directions:

1. Mix dry ingredients

2. In a separate bowl, beat egg & add milk

3. combine wet & dry ingredients

4. cook on med-low heat (adding blueberries to wet side of pancake after batter is in frying pan)

5. serve with REAL maple syrup (or use unsweetened apple sauce if you want to keep the sugar to a minumum)

For the Mickey Mouse variety, see picture:

It’s all in the wrist. Just dribble two extra little droplets of batter on the top of the larger main pancake to create the “mouse ears”.

Simply delicious!

independence

I am busy with my hectic “working mom” life lately and so the posting has been rather light. But I thought I should at least update some of you on how the latest battles are going.

Food:

Maya seems to be eating totally normally again. We just backed off and started setting platefuls of food in front of her with a variety of healthy choices and if she was hungry enough she would eat some of it without a fuss. Then she came down with a bad cold the first week of daycare and I think it was the kind of cold where eating stuff, especially hot stuff, made her throat feel so much better that she’d swallow almost everything I put in front of her. Since then, we’ve learned that as long as we respect the fact that she has certain things that she just doesn’t want to eat at certain times (i.e. she’s picky), she’ll still eat lots of healthy stuff. I’ve also spent more time baking and cooking with my Deceptively Delicious cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld. It’s a good one for helping me sneak in the veggies. Maya will eat meat, carbs and fruit, but veggies are almost inevitably a no-go. Deceptively Delicious definitely works for us. I’ve posted previously about recipes from the book here.

Daycare:

Daycare is also getting better. I love Maya’s daycare provider and I’m thankful that she and Maya have their own special bond. Lately, when I drop Maya off she waves goodbye to me with a happy smile and says, “see you later, mom”. It’s hard to see her becoming so independent and happy on her own, but also comforting to know that she’s feeling content and secure even when I’m not there.

I know it’s a cliche but she is growing up so darn fast and becoming her own person more and more everyday. Where does the time go?! Parenting is one wild ride.

the food thing

We’ve progressed somewhat since I last wrote about my determined little daughter who won’t eat much of anything. The whole not eating situation seemed to be getting worse and worse, so I thought I’ll just insist that she eat something that I KNOW she likes, so I made pancakes and sat her in her high chair without the computer (and her beloved YouTube episodes of Toopy and Binoo) and I tried to get her to eat them. “I don’t want to eat pancakes!” she yelled, and she cried and fussed for about an hour before my husband and I looked at each other with a look that we both knew meant that this approach wasn’t working.

So we sent her on her way to the TV with yet another fist full of rice crackers and a bottle of milk.

Then, someone said something that really clicked for me and something that I KNEW had to work. You see, I was doing the thing I never do as a teacher anymore, I was getting in a power struggle with a child. Maya was wielding her power in the food arena and I was losing the battle BIG TIME. So, my wise friend (who has two older daughters) explained how her youngest did the same thing around potty training, and so she found that just backing off and letting it be was really helpful. I was afraid to do this because I’m worried about how hungry and literally shaky Maya gets, but I decided to give it a try because my current approach wasn’t working.

And now, well… she’s eating… sort of. She has started eating eggs again, but only the whites and only if the eggs are boiled. She’s eating cheese, and berries and some other fruits. And of course she’s still eating a ton of rice crackers and milk, but tonight when she thought we weren’t looking she scarfed down two big bites of chicken and yam, which proves to me how much of a game this all is for her. My husband and I have taken to speaking in code, which means spelling out most words associated with food so she doesn’t catch on to the fact that we’re still totally obsessed with making sure that she’s eating properly. Our conversations look kind of like this:

Me: She just A-T-E a big bite of the C-H-I-C-K-E-N!

Him: I know and I saw her have some Y-A-M a minute ago.

Me: Offer her some E-G-G-S but don’t make it a big deal just set it in front of her and see if she goes for it.

Him: She went for it!

Me: Okay, now let’s L-O-O-K out the W-I-N-D-O-W so she doesn’t think we’re talking about her.

Yes, we are desperate fools but I think we have figured out how to weather this latest storm, at least for now!

i swore i’d never…

Lately, Maya has become incredibly disinterested in food. She generally would rather do anything except eat. Then, when she does decide she wants to eat, she won’t eat what I put in front of her. She’s so fussy and I so badly want her to eat that I’ll try a LOT of different things before I find something she’ll go for. I have heard the old adage “kids will eat when they’re hungry” and I tried not to worry and just let it go when she wasn’t into eating. But then, she started getting the shakes. You see, my hubby and I both get pretty hypoglycemic when we’re hungry, and I tend to get super shaky when I haven’t had enough food. Maya seems to have inherited this same need to eat. The problem is that no matter how shaky and obviously hungry she is, she often won’t eat. Naturally, this freaks me out!

As a teacher, I have seen so many parenting faux pas, you know the things you SWEAR you’ll never do when you have your own kids. But now, I’m finding this whole parenting thing to be pretty humbling, because in my attempts to get my child to eat breakfast yesterday morning, I ended up sitting her in front of  YouTube watching Toopy and Binoo while she had rice crackers and milk for breakfast because those were the only things I could get her to consume before we had to run off to daycare! Needless to say, this is totally against almost everything I believe about good parenting.

So, I’m opening it up to all the other parents out there… what do you do as a mom or dad that you swore you’d never do?

green eggs

I’m not an especially big fan of Jerry Seinfeld or his wife, but when Maya started becoming pickier and pickier about her food choices, a friend of mine recommended Deceptively Delicious to me. It’s a cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld, Jerry’s wife. The whole concept is that if your child won’t eat vegetables, you can hide them in a variety of clever ways that mostly involve the use of purees.

This has worked pretty well for me. The most successful recipe is Green Eggs, which is basically scrambled eggs with some pureed spinach mixed in. It’s the only way so far that I can get Maya to eat her greens and she LOVES it! (Recipe below)

Green Eggs recipe from Deceptively Delicious:

2 tsp margarine
1 lb baby spinach, washed and drained
3 tbsp skim milk
2 large eggss
Pinch of salt
Nonstick cooking spray

Directions: Melt 1 tsp of the margarine in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add the spinach, turn the heat to high, and cook, stirring often, until the spinach wilts. Then add the milk and cook to evaporate, 1-2 more minutes. Transfer to a food processor and puree; let cool a few minutes.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with the puree and the salt. Coat the same skillet with cooking spray and set the pan over medium heat. Add the remaining tsp of margarine and heat until melted. Add the egg mixture, reduce the heat to low, and cook, stirring occasionally, 2-3 minutes.

Recipe in Demand

So, everyone has been asking me about my latest salad. It’s a yam-quinoa salad with chick peas and it’s delicious! For those of you who want something new to add to your repertoire, the recipe is below:

Yam-Quinoa Salad

Combine:

2 Yams (baked, cooled, peeled and cubed)

1 cup quinoa cooked in 2 cups of chicken stock/broth

4 green onions (finely chopped)

19 oz. can chick peas

1/4 cup fresh basil (chopped)

2/3 cup flax oil

1/3 cup apple cider vinegar

(optional: soft goat cheese, red/yellow peppers, cucumber)

Salt and pepper to taste

Maybe it’s the fresh basil or perhaps the flax oil with the yummy vinegar… whatever the case, both my husband and I are addicted! Enjoy!

Accept the Poop

I know babies poop a lot and I accept this, or at least I’m trying to. I used to have a very hard time with poop. This was in part due to the fact that, as an elementary school teacher, I had one haunting encounter with a Grade 2 student… let’s just say my hair was involved. Now, breast milk poop was messy but it smelled like roses compared to Maya’s more recent fare which is the result of all the new and exciting solid food she eats. Not only is the stink starting to get to me, but today I tried to pull back her diaper to check her “status” and sunk my finger into a whopper–yuck! I know it’s not mature for me, as a mom, to go on about this… I have to just accept that poop is a part of my life now and it’s going to be for a long while still!