New Mom Fortifying Breakfast

My poor baby is teething and cutting his top two teeth, and has an ear infection to boot.  I've been up every 2 hours for the last two nights, and have only had 5 hours sleep last night.  While that's not downright sleep deprivation, I do feel tired... well, that was until I had my fortifying breakfast.  It consisted of the following:

• 2 Tylenol - for aches and pains from carrying a 25 lb child
• 3 fish oil for brain power
• 1 multi vitamin
• PSA--check with your doctor before taking supplements and medications.  :)
• 1 egg, two whites with milk and cheese - scrambled
• 1 serving of cottage cheese topped with blueberries for anti-oxidants, brain power, and flavor.
• water
• coffee to wash it all down.

I'm feeling more ready for the day by the moment!  I tried to keep the carbs low so that I wouldn't be tired.

Sweetest Moments

The sweetest moments in life can fly by you so quickly if you're not paying attention.  It's so easy to get caught up in busyiness... and when you do you get robbed of joy.  This happened to me very recently, and I was reminded by my Creator that life happens fast, and if I'm grumbling, I'll miss the sweetest moments.  I've been collecting sweetest moments for two days now.  My favorite sweetest moment is today, when I took Gregory to the beach.  We played in the sand, we went in the water, and went for a walk.  Gregory took it all in.  I decided it was about time for something to eat, so I took the baby back to our blanket, and gave him a cracker and his sippy cup full of water.  He looked up at me as if to say, "Thanks mom", and then started to eat.  While he was eating his cracker quietly, a seagull came up, rather agressively, and I knew that his goal was to get my son's cracker.  So I surrounded my son with myself as best I could by sitting in front of him, with a plastic shovel, ready to swat away any bird that might steal my sons food.  Gregory sat there, oblivious, enjoying his cracker, with his sun hat on, and his sippy cup near.  It's silly, but that's one of my sweetest moments for today.

The next sweetest moment is when I just put him down for a nap, and he let me hold him and rock him-- these days he's to busy for that.  It was wonderful just to hold my son.

Don't let your sweetest moments be absorbed in busyness or ridiculousness. :)

Portable Fabric Baby Chair Restraint

Since I'm going to Chicago in a couple of weeks, I knew I'd need a high chair, or at least a way to hold the baby down so we could feed him.    So I created this seat out of fabric and sewed it up.  It took me about an hour, so that wasn't bad.  These aren't great pictures -- the lighting was all wrong!  But they show how it works.  Tomorrow I'm going to feed Gregory at the table using this. 

Here he is all strapped in.

Here's my newly created child restraint device.

Here he is again investigating his new system. 

What if it's not a cannoli?

What if it's not a cannoli?   Then is it really cheating?  What if I make the wonderful creamy yumminess that goes INSIDE the cannoli?    Then I really didn't eat a cannoli!    I find myself wondering just how I can make the latest greatest dessert involving the filling of the cannoli.  That's what I really like anyway! 

I just checked out this great blog article about how to make cannolis.

http://www.recipegirl.com/2009/04/25/how-to-make-homemade-cannoli/

I'm a new mom.  I'll be leaving the cannoli making to the bakery.  But I am interested in creating something NEW with the filling.  :)  

Here are my ideas:  Fill a cream puff with cannoli filling, figure out a way to make cannoli cake pops, make cupcakes and use cannoli filling for frosting!  Oh yea.  now there's an idea!  CUPCAKE CANNOLIS.  MMMMMM HMMMMMM.   

First Trip to the Beach

I don't know why I'm this way, but I dread new things.  Maybe dread is a strong word.  Too strong.  Okay.  I don't dread new things.  I don't like the unknown about something.  Unknown=dangerous for me.  I don't know why either.  I'd never taken Gregory to the beach, but I knew I was ready to take him.  So I decided I was going to take Gregory to the beach when my friend Pam invited us. 

We went to a private beach near our home, and so that cut out on commuting time. 


First he was just sitting in the sand, picking it up with his fingers.  I was nervous he was going to try to eat it, but he decided that he didn't like the texture-- so he didn't try.  Horray!

Then he saw the water, and started crawling towards it.

and stopped to play with the shovel I gave him.

and found a seeweed.

Overall it was a really good visit to the beach, and I'm glad we went.    I'm also glad we did something new.  And I'm thinking we'll have more trips to the beach.  :)  It was definetely fun, and worth the effort!  :)

Boys, Kitchens, Cannolis & Coupons

So "The Purpose of Boys" is insightful.  It basically describes how in our culture we need to make sure that we institute multiple structures for our boys to be successful.  Boys need rites of passage-- we don't have enough.  Boys need strong discipline and guidance.  Boys need to have many mentors who can reinforce value systems.  Good read.  Worth the time.   Still working on the second half.  I'll be enrolling my son in Brazilian Ju Jit Su and also I'm thinking cub scouts-- and I'm magically going to turn my wonderful husband into a great scout leader! :)  (Not sure how yet, but maybe he'll just do it! )

Kitchens--  Okay!  SO before I challenged myself to keep my kitchen clean, I should have done the math!  30 days of a clean kitchen means the kitchen has to be cleaned 90 times!!!!!!!!  That's ridiculous!  Where can I sign up for the Jetsons robot?  What was her name again?

I've been to Publix 3 times and each time I've been able to completely avoid the bakery-- which holds the precious cannolis.  So far, so good.  At least I'm experiencing "easy" success with this one!  :) 

And now to my coupon total for the day:  I spent $86 dollars at Publix saved $119!  Horray!  I wish Publix doubled coupons.

The Purpose of Boys

Since my becoming pregnant with my son, I've endeavored to read everything I can get my hands on about parenting and child development.  I've read at least 30 books in the last 18 months covering topics from pretnatal development, breastfeeding, child development in the first 2 years, and parenting.  I've also read books about how different cultures approach parenting.  One topic that has been and continues to be on my mind is my concern for the men in our country and what we're doing to our boys.  An important parenting goal for me is to understand boys and to parent my son in such a way that he is ready for manhood when it comes to him.  I decided to start reading up on the topic.  My first book is:



This book talks about how many boys are lacking in purpose in our culture-- no surprise here-- and provides surprising insight into the development of boys as they grow into men.  I highly recommend it-- especially if you have any contact with boys.  I started reading it while my son was napping, and when my son woke up from his nap, I wondered if I should be allowed to be around my son before completing it.  I opted for a hands on afternoon with plenty of play and language development.  There's no way this book is gonna tell me these two things are bad.  I'm looking forward to finishing this book.

30 day challenge: Challenge 2: A clean kitchen.

I was rooting around on blogspot today, and found some blogs that I liked.  One woman, had a picture of her kitchen sink, full of dishes, having cooked for 4 hours to create some marvelous things.  Her dirty kitchen sink was cleaner looking in appearance than my clean sink.  I became disgusted!  I rolled up my sleeves and went to work in my kitchen.  I gave my son some cut up green beans to keep him busy-- he's just learning to eat finger foods-- and I went to work!

 I scrubbed and scrubbed my kitchen.  And I decided for my second challenge:  30 days, a clean kitchen.  Now to make this possible, I have to come up with several problem solvers before they start.  I don't want to spend all my time in the kitchen.  SO I made two dinners tonight in order that I wouldn't have to cook tomorrow night.... thereby making my efforts to save money and have a clean kitchen more feasible.  In previous attempts to have a clean kitchen, I would simply stop cooking.  But since this is not an option, now that I have a wiley 10 month old, and it's easier to eat in then it is to go out.  Cheaper too! 

Here are the results of my efforts.

Which were immediately hampered by my son!  Who made me think that keeping a kitchen clean for 30 days with a 10 month old would be more of a challenge than I want to take on!

30 Day Challenges: Challenge 1: 30 Days - No Cannolis!

I've absolutely decided some things about my life are fantastic!  I have a great God, a great husband, a great son, and family, and I love my job.  But there are some things that need work.  So I'm instituting a series of challenges.  My overall goal in these challenges is to improve my life by learning to be satisfied with what I have been given. 

So here it goes:  Aristotle said, "It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it."  It would be rather ridiculous of me to give up on desire.  After all, God made me with desire.  I'm thinking though, that my desire needs to be aimed in the right direction-- and not at the cannoli! 

Seriously! 

When did my love for the cannoli get out of control????  I mean, it started with the occasional minature cannoli while shopping at Publix.  This has now grown into a disaster of gargantuan proportion.  I crave them daily.  I think about how light and sweet they are, and how they just feel so wonderful-- even now my mouth is watering--- and I just ate two BIG cannolis. So far, this week, I've had 3. 

I was planning to do a series of 30 day challenges.  I thought all day-- long and hard about what challenge would be first, and right now giving up the cannoli is a challenge!    So my first challenge to myself is:  No cannoli's -- 30 days! 

I need an outlet

My name's Lisa.  I'm a wife, mother, and full time teacher.  Learning to juggle all these hats hasn't been easy for me, but I'm learning.  I decided to blog because I want to share the tidbits of what I learn everyday, in the hopes that others will benefit from my learning.