How NOT to cook a fish

Last year, I found a recipe in a summer issue of Bon Appetit for whole fish cooked in salt. We used Rockfish, one of my favorites, and it was not only delicious, but provided an excellent photo opportunity of my little one helping me cook.

The basic idea is you mix about 5 lbs of kosher salt with 5 or 6 egg whites, then put the salt in an oven dish, lay in the fish, who are gutted and scaled, and then cover it completely with the rest of the salt. It cooks at 400F for 20 minutes, then after ten minutes you bash the salt off with a hammer and take the amazing fish out.

I love cooking things whole, and was pleased to find such an easy recipe that seemed fancy. You stuff the cavity with a lemon slice or two, some thyme and parsley before you cook it. Fabu.

This week, I tried it again, only two REALLY important things were different. The most important is I only had two eggs. I add water and olive oil to create a more pasty feel, but as I ended up making the salt mixture in two batches, there was NO egg in the top layer of salt. It didn't crust up, so the fish was just covered in salt, instead of breaking neatly away. Secondly, I have no idea what kind of fish I had. The store said "Sea Bass" which is a close relative of, or possibly the same thing as, a Rockfish, but I think either I picked the wrong ones, or they lied. It was gross and undercooked, although my poor starving husband ate some. J helped make it, and really like the salt, but wisely wouldn't touch the fish.

Next time, I will follow the directions. Sometimes I can fudge it, but apparently, this was not one of those times.

Yikes. Thanks for reading,
-Anne

Fruit Strike!

I swear my next post will be about food, not poop. Bear with me.

This kid is on an all-out fruit strike. He'll eat bananas, but that's it. I have been giving him "Naked" juice that's like a smoothie with the seeds remved (no dairy, of course). He won't drink homemade smoothie anymore. He also refused homemade popsicle. Too dang smart.

Other than that, he's been fairly healthy, not counting the birthday-cake episode a week ago. I let him have a small peice, and an hour later The Mess was backl. He recovered pretty quickly, though, and had has these miraculously poop-shaped poops.

I've been adding flax seeds to his sandwiches, becasue I am sneaky. I've also discovered he likes baby broccoli, and there's always squash and sweet potatos. I am so looking forward to getting the answers to his puzzle. I'm no good at waiting for results, but then again, who is?

More when the mood strikes me,
-Anne

A New road

Pardon my absence. I had an outpatient procedure Monday that has left me basically useless for a week. I'm fine, however, and have been enjoying my husband waiting on us hand and foot.

In other news, I got the results of J's bloodwork, and he has 2 mrkers for celiac, whatever that means. The parasite tests aren't done yet, but he now has to see a pediatric GI, and then get MORE blood tests, and then a gluten-free diet, and then more tests to see if the gluten-free diet made a differnence.

So, I'm really glad we switched peds, and really glad that we're going to find SOMETHING out about all this. He's been doing pretty well, removed from the dairy, egg, nuts, fish and most soy and corn for about three weeks now. But still with a little of the mess.

So that's all the news. Hopefully my brain will work soon and I'll tell you all about our adventures in unschooling. Like how J got an agricultural/ nutrition lesson last night by shucking corn with Daddy. If I took a picture, it would have been a documented "class". Yay!

Thanks for reading,
-Anne

The Dig

Our new pediatrician is great.

He's very laid back, but with exactly the appropriate amount of concern. Everyone in the office is wonderful.

We went on Tuesday, and began a round of tests to rule out everything. Three Serocult cards (poo smear), two parasite bottles (poo dig), and three tubes of blood later, all we have to do now is wait. I've never been so excited to pick through J's poo. It was a little difficult, because the bloody bits are important to include, yet they like to slip off the stick. All this while the boy is hopping around next to me, saying, "I can't see! I can't see!"

He was a trooper with the bloodwork, and cried while they did it, but didn't fight. Afterwards, he was very upset that his band-aid only stayed on for a while.

We went to the mall to find green sneakers for him, a request he had made this morning, and found NOTHING. So, after two hours of searching online, all we could find were these.

I think they're pretty cute, even though they have a Boston Celtics logo on them. I really wanted low-top Chucks in Kelly Green, but alas, they are not available in Toddler 8 (unless YOU have a secret shoe store you want to share.) Ss now he can clash his Mexico soccer ball (green) with his Celtics shoes.

I think a little boy who has been to the doctor twice in two days deserves all the green sneakers his little heart desires, don't you?

Cheers,
-Anne

Miracle milk

Greetings, oh forgotten ones.

I have been experimenting with different milks for J, and have settled on Oat Milk. It's LOADED with fiber, which helps counteract the low-fat diet he has due to the no dairy y thing, and tastes great even without vanilla flavoring. I decided to take him off soymilk, partially because of the whole phytoestrogen debate, and also because I heard it was hard to digest. I wanted to give his little tummy a chance to heal, so I've been giving him really easy food.

I also think he's feeling the need for a simple diet, too, because all he wants to eat are cheerios, bananas, and sandwiches. I switched from almond butter to sunflower butter today, thinking maybe to avoid the whole nut family for a while. I think it tastes much closer to "nutty" than the almond stuff is, and is a little cheaper, too, which is nice.

I tried hemp milk for a few days, but was just too weirded out by the extreme greasiness of it. It tasted pretty good, but crazy expensive, like 4 bucks a box.

On top of that, we finally got a new pediatrician! Hooray! I had a terrible time contacting our old one while overseas, mostly because all hone calls go to an off-site answering center. I need a pediatrician's office where they can see the guy. The old one was a good ped, but his office SUCKED. I had SO many problems with them, that in the end, it wasn't worth it.

That's about it for now. We go to the new guy on Tuesday, so I'll give an update after the visit.

Thanks for reading,
Anne

Just keep nursing

There a few notes I'd like to share about those early weeks. As educated and informed as I was, there were still a few things about nursing a newborn that I wish I'd known.

The very first, and the first thing I share with other new mothers or mothers-to-be, is that it is PERFECTLY NORMAL for your newborn (and I mean up to 3 months) to want to nurse almost constantly. This does not mean something is wrong with your supply. Is the baby peeing? Then he's fine, and your supply is fine. Just keep nursing. Your breasts are not just food for him. They are warmth and comfort. They help him get all that sleep his tiny baby body needs. They relax him. They are his center in a freaky, freaky world where he spends more than half his time, on average, physically separated from his mother, whom he hasn't realized is a separate person.

Physiologically, he has a teensy tummy, and a liquid diet processes quite quickly through it, as it should. And he is growing at an astonishing rate, so of course he wants to eat all the time. That "every three hours" crap is for formula-fed babies, who are trying to digest cows/soy milk, which their tummies are not designed to accept. Just keep nursing

Physiologically for the mother, your boobs have to figure out how much this critter needs. That takes almost two months to get into a flow (ha ha). Give yourself and your baby a break. Just keep nursing.

Second, sometimes your baby is just thirsty. Breast milk starts with a thinner flow, then after a few minutes of nursing changes to a thicker, more fatty liquid. He might just need a tasty beverage. Get yourself one, too.

And third, you cannot overfeed a baby. He'll just barf it back up if he needs to, or refuse the breast. You're not going to make him overweight. I actually knew this, but thought it was important enough to share here.

Cosleeping is tremendously helpful to the nursing relationship. I wish I hadn't been so afraid to sleep with my boy when he was small. Check out DrSears.com for tips on cosleeping safely. If you're really nervous, buy a cosleeper. I can't believe I got up, went and got the baby, sat up, nursed, then put him back, often unsuccessfully, and stumbled back to bed. TOTALLY not going through all that next time.

I think those were my important notes for the early weeks. Thanks again for reading,
-Anne

Hooray For Boobies! Part 2

So where were we?

I brought my giant baby home from the hospital, with post-caesarian instructions not to walk up stairs of carry more than ten pounds. They handed me a ten-pound baby while saying this. In my home, the bathroom was on the second floor, and there was NO WAY I could live in a bedroom for a month.

But back to the nursing. This kid was a fantastic nurser. Even in the early weeks, he would actually unlatch if his latch wasn't right, and try again. During the day, we nursed so constantly, there were only about 30 minute breaks from the end of one to the start of another. Each time he did both sides, about 15 minutes each side, but I stopped counting and trusted him after the first week or so. Sometimes it was 20 minutes, and he'd have a three-boober, left, right, left. Sometimes only three minutes a side and then done. The forty-minutes session was always the norm for us.

Nights were a little tougher, trying to get him to stay awake long enough to have a complete meal. There was certainly NO problem waking him at first, as he slept in 90-minute sections all night long, but he would fall asleep after the first side, and I would change his diaper to get him woken up enough for the second side. My big "startle the baby' trick was to spit in his ear. Gross, I know, but required very little energy from me, and I had very little energy for almost two years.

The first six weeks, it stung every time he latched on, which is well within the range of normal. This is one reason so many women give up so quickly. The nerves are getting used to the sensation and need time to adjust. That's why they tell you to switch the position the baby is nursing in every time. I did that for about two weeks, then figured we'd nurse in the most comfortable position for both of us, the cradle hold. The "football hold", where baby's feet are behind you (can you say, awkward) is apparently for women who have a lot of abdominal pain after the c-section. Mine hurt, but not enough to change the baby's position. That’s' what the Boppy was for. I think the doctor's advice had not caught up with the wonderful nursing pillows out there, or I'm just super tough.

He nursed, and nursed, and I ate and ate. People would say, "Oh, is he eating again?" And I'd say, "No, he's still eating." It was all one big meal for him.

We nursed everywhere. The Water Taxi, in front of the coffee shop almost every day, on airplanes, at friend's houses, basically wherever we were. I never tried to cover him with a blanket, even after he got older and got distractible, popping on and off. Once we nursed while walking down the street. He was in his sling, and hadn't taken a nap at all that day.

As far as pumping, I think it's a great thing, and highly recommend it, but I hated it, and did it probably 10 times. It wasn't a supply issue, as my boy just grew and grew, but I just didn’t feel like pumping on top of nursing all the time. I also had no good reason, and not-so-secretly loved having a reason to keep my angel near me at all times.

He had a pumped bottle at 8 weeks, which he had no problem with, but other than those two times in the hospital, formula never crossed his lips. I never felt the need to give him formula so he would sleep better or anything like that, because I knew too much. Formula does not equal sleep, and anyway, what else did I have to do? I wasn't working, had no other children, and meeting his needs is my job, so why not do it? Plus, I think I was too tired to think about it, and it was always easy just to pop a boob in him.

I don’t have any big problem with formula, I just didn’t see the point for us. Plus it's smelly and a hassle. I never minded taking my shirt off in public before, why stop now? We never used a pacifier either, although I tried about three times. He didn't take it at all, and threw up the third time. Again, no point in our family. He was also one of those babies that just eats and eats, and in turn, allowed me to eat and eat.

Overall, things went really well in the breastfeeding area. He didn't sleep, but I always figured he was just too busy.

The next installment will cover the rest of the first year, and the challenges of nursing an acrobat.
Thank for reading,
-Anne