I’m chilling in bed with the kids today watching movies. Garrick walked into the room and saw Trent violently hugging Hunter. (It’s a good thing the fatty is so sturdy.) He told Trent to be gentle and then grabbed Hunter for a hug. At this Trent jumped up, put his arms around the baby and announced “NO! MY HUNTER!” and kept saying it until Garrick let go.
Sure made me feel good.
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First off, I will start this post by saying that I have a terrible flaw in that I am indecisive and sort of a major push over. Not a good combination when it comes to parenting.
That said, today I took the kids to a play date. We were the only ones to show, but it was still a really nice time since the host has twins Trent’s age. It got to be time for them to eat their lunch and I asked her how she got her kids to eat vegetables, since Trent eats none. She told me how her one kid won’t eat any veggies, but the other one is pretty good about it. She has a system where she brings out the the veggies first. When the kids finish that, she brings out the meat. Once they eat the meat then she brings out the starch.
I watched her bring out the veggies and the kids just ate it. I resolved that I would try this method for our own lunch time once I got home. We drove back and I set Trent up at the dining room table and made him a small amount of corn. My plan was to give him a PB&J after he ate it. Instead he refused to eat any corn at all, not even to try it. I then decided to dig my heels in! He wasn’t going to get another course until he ate some corn! Finally he said he was done. So I figured we should stop fighting over the stupid corn and go try and take a nap.
Nap time was another disaster, which is a story in and of itself. Suffice it to say, I was determined to continue with my experiment again at dinner time and right on to the next day for breakfast and lunch if need be. I knew it was going to be very difficult, but I was feeling very adamant when Garrick got home and told him of my plan. He agreed.
Dinner time rolled around and I again presented the corn, much to Trent’s dismay. I also gave him a plate of the dinner Garrick and I were eating, a pasta bake which came out pretty good. He wouldn’t touch any of it and dinner dissolved into a mess of crying, screaming and tantrums; the magnitude of which Trent had never before reached. Thank goodness Hunter was being so good during all of this.
By this point I was starting to second guess myself. Should I just buckle and let Trent eat something he likes, cereal maybe? Or should I stick to my guns? Garrick made the decision for me, saying it was time for some tough love since we have been letting Trent have his way for so long. The entire night was then Trent screaming. I was cleaning the kitchen listening to him in his room calling for me. By this point I had totally cracked, but Garrick was standing firm on the issue now. I even came up with the suggestion of just offering the same vegetable with every meal in hopes that Trent will try it, but that didn’t fly with him. I was also thinking to myself that maybe we should just go back to the way were doing it before, presenting him with food, and making sure there is at least one thing that he likes on the plate.
Now I felt really awful. And stupid. All because I was so enchanted by two kids sitting nicely eating vegetables at lunch time. Poor Trent couldn’t control himself after not having lunch or dinner in addition to being tired from no nap. I don’t want Trent to have melt downs and tantrums, but I don’t want to let him walk all over me either. No one ever said parenting would be easy…
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Tonight I introduced Trent to markers! We had a lot of fun! Good thing they are washable. We enjoyed making shapes!
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Hunter started crawling yesterday! As soon as I have some video of him, I will put it on youtube and post it here! He’s been on the verge of doing it for two months and he finally got that forward momentum going! Yay for baby!
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My Mom is visiting next month so I figured I would make count down calender project to help Trent understand when she will be here. We spent his entire nap time getting crazy with crayons, glue, glitter and stickers.
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When I was a kid, I noticed that my sisters bangs were in her eyes. I decided to give her a hair cut for my Mom. Poor Caitlin had to have the shortest bangs ever at the age of two! Apparently in the twenty or so years since that happened I haven’t gotten any better at cutting hair. Tonight, as Trent was stalling bed time and eating a snack, we were sitting at the dining room table. I was looking at him and his hair was almost touching his nose. I have been looking at his hair for months saying he needs a haircut, and I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I grabbed the kitchen scissors and started snipping. Apparently I haven’t gotten any better since the last haircut I gave. Poor Trent.
Luckily, Garrick used to give haircuts while he was in the Army and was able to fix what I did. It’s not a good haircut, but it’s not a bad hair cut either. It just needs to be evened out a little, which Garrick said he would do tomorrow night.
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Today, Trent, Hunter and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and go to a playground. I have been hearing a lot about Fantasy Playground, so that’s where we went. It’s pretty cool. When I was a kid this kind of playground was my favorite kind. It is all wood with lots of little spots to explore and sort of hide, along with big towers and slides and all sorts of other fun stuff. It was a perfect day for it too. I spent the entire time without a jacket, and even got a little too warm when the sun was really shining. Here’s some pictures.
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So the kids have been sick for the past two weeks. Trent the first week, and Hunter the second. In addition to being sick, poor Hunter was cutting six teeth. I couldn’t do anything because all he wanted to do was nurse. Thank goodness they are both finally feeling better.
Today I have been playing catch up with my organization duties as leader of my Mommies group. I wasn’t able to post anything at all, or email any of my members, because I couldn’t type. I could look at stuff, but with Hunter in one arm it was impossible to do any sort of corresponding or updating. I still have a bunch of things I have to do, but for the most part I am now all caught up with everything, emailing people back and getting events up on my groups calender.
It has been pretty nice here the past couple of days and it is supposed to stay the same tomorrow. Since we’ve been cooped up for so long, I decided to take the kids outside tomorrow. We’re going to check out this neat play ground that I have been hearing a lot about since we have moved to our new neighborhood. I’ll take pictures tomorrow and try and write a review of the place. I’m really excited to get Trent out of the house, because he needs it badly. He hasn’t been good about taking his naps or going to bed, and I know it is because he has too much energy. Tomorrow he shouldn’t have any problems.
I’m also catching up with feeding my family. I have been struggling getting food on the table these past weeks, can you guess why? Anyway, I was at least able to get good nutritious food made every night, even if Trent won’t eat it. This weekend, though, I was able to finally sit down and make puree’s for baby food and to cook with! I have the Jessica Seinfeld “Deceptively Delicious” cookbook and I have been wanting to utilize it forever, I just never had the time to actually make the purees to make the recipes. I made up a ton of purees over the weekend and I am going to start using them this week in recipes. Tomorrow I am making the banana bread with cauliflower puree and the spaghetti pie with carrot and broccoli purees.
I was really excited to make the puree’s because I was using the new rice maker and hand mixer that I got for Christmas. I got the exact rice cooker that I posted about a couple of months ago, and let me tell you it is AWESOME! It has a retractable cord, I can set it to start cooking at a certain time, it has a slow cooking option. This thing is fantastic! I used it steam all my veggies over the weekend and then used my new hand blender to puree them. The hand blender is great too. It only has one speed, but it works so well that it doesn’t even matter. The feature that I like the best is that the stick detaches and can go in the dish washer. Rad!
Well, I have a lot more stuff that I could write about in this post, but I think it’s getting a little late. I can always write another post tomorrow!
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From Baby Center, more reasons to nurse your baby as long as you can. When I say that, I mean within reason. I’m not an advocate of nursing your nine year old.
Breastfeeding may protect a woman’s heart
Mon, Dec 21, 2009 (HealthDay News) — Although many women choose to breastfeed because of the numerous health benefits it offers their offspring, new research suggests that breastfeeding may also help the health of the mothers’ hearts later in life.
In a study of nearly 300 women, researchers found that those who had not breastfed were much more likely to have calcification or plaque in their coronary artery, aorta and carotid artery. When calcifications and plaque build up in the arteries, blood flow can be reduced, and, if enough of these deposits build up, they can cause a heart attack or stroke.
“Women who had not breastfed were more likely to develop changes that might lead to symptomatic heart disease,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Eleanor Schwarz, an assistant professor of medicine, epidemiology, obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Research on Health Care.
Results of the study will be published in the January issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Schwarz and her colleagues had previously looked at breastfeeding’s effect on older women, and that study found that post-menopausal women who had breastfed were less likely to report having heart disease. Another study on breastfeeding from a different research group recently reported in the journal Diabetes that women who breastfed were less likely to develop metabolic syndrome, a clustering of risk factors that indicate an increased risk for heart disease.
The current study included 297 women who’d had at least one baby. At the time of the study, they were 45 to 58 years old, had never been diagnosed with heart disease and had no known symptoms of heart disease.
The researchers used two imaging techniques — electron beam tomography and ultrasound — to assess the health of the women’s blood vessels.
They found that 32 percent of the women who had not breastfed had coronary artery calcification, compared with 17 percent of the breastfeeding moms. The researchers found calcifications in 39 percent of the aortas of women who hadn’t breastfed, versus 17 percent of the women who had. They also found plaque deposits in the carotid artery of 18 percent of the women who had not breastfed and 10 percent of those who had.
After adjusting the data for socioeconomic status, family history and lifestyle factors, heart disease risk factors and body mass, the researchers concluded that women who had not breastfed were five times more likely to have aortic calcifications than women who consistently breast-fed.
Schwarz said the researchers suspect that the apparent benefit from breastfeeding on later heart health stems from how a woman’s body stores fat and how that fat is released — or not released — after pregnancy.
“A woman’s body expects to go through pregnancy and then lactation,” Schwarz explained. “During pregnancy, a woman’s body stores fat that it expects to release during lactation. If women don’t breastfeed, then the body has to deal with excessive fat.”
The bottom line is that “it’s really important to try to breastfeed,” she said. “If you can breastfeed for three months after each pregnancy, your blood vessels are likely to be in better shape down the road.”
She added that women who can’t breastfeed for three months ought to try for at least a little while. “Some women may feel overwhelmed by some of the long-term breastfeeding recommendations,” Schwarz said. “Our study looked at three months, but if that’s not possible, the longer you can stick with it, the better.”
Dr. Catherine McNeal, an associate professor of medicine and a specialist in cardiovascular disease prevention at Scott & White Healthcare, said she agrees that a decrease in fat mass after pregnancy is probably the factor that’s providing a heart benefit to women who breastfed.
“We used to think of fat as this inert material, but it’s very bioactive,” McNeal said. “It produces a plethora of bad hormones and inflammatory markers that influence blood pressure, lipids and the risk of diabetes.”
McNeal said that the study provided preliminary data “and we need to look at this area more closely, but I’m excited to see they found a positive effect of breastfeeding.”
– Serena GordonWhat you can do:
Breastfeed your child if you can. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding your baby for at least the first year of life, and longer if both you and your child wish to continue.
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