Outdoor Play: Kite Flying

It's kite festival weekend in India. Earlier this week Mike's office had a little warm-up party after work one day. I brought Muffin to see her first kites (she was too young for last year's festival). She loved watching them but felt betrayed when she got bonked on the head a couple times. By the end of the afternoon she'd shown that kite who was boss.

We're going to the park this weekend to run around and watch more kite flying.

Outdoor Play is hosted by Greening Sam and Avery and Mama Pea Pod.

Bento: Chicken and Cheese, Please

Back in my nine-to-five working days I packed my lunch most of the time and I got into bento boxes. In the Bay Area I had easy access to Japanese "dollar" stores so my collections of boxes and other supplies grew, and I actually used them. Being gluten-free it always helps to have my own snacks on-hand for traveling aside from workday lunches. And when I was pregnant and eating everything in site, many days were a two-bento day, plus lunch.

But then I stopped working and didn't need them as much. Recently, though, I rediscovered bento boxes as a way to thrill a hungry toddler on the go. She doesn't care how attractive they look, although she does enjoy the cute pictures on the outsides. She mostly just wants yummy food, and she wants it now.

Here is the first official bento I've made in a long time.

On Thursdays Muffin has a toddler music class. (It's adorable!) That means she has an early lunch, goes down for a nap as soon as we get home, and wakes up famished for an early dinner. On this Thursday, however, we planned to go to Mike's office for the afternoon so the early dinner had to be packed up for the car.

It's not pretty or fancy, but it's filled with some of her current favorite foods and at this age I think that's what matters. I packed it up while she was napping so we could grab it and run out the door as soon as she woke up.

We had a roast chicken so I pulled off a leg and picked off some dark meat. (I threw in a little skin for texture and flavor. She picks at it and tastes it but rarely eats it.) I broke up some Chebe breadsticks that we'd made the night before (easier for her to bite if they're already broken into smaller bits). I chopped half a pear and a bit of cheddar cheese. With a bottle of milk and an apple juice box Muffin had a few hours' worth of fuel.

I remembered my old trick of tying a cloth napkin around the bento box to keep it from popping open in my bag. Now I need to get crafty and make a tote bag that isn't much bigger than the purse I already carry but can accommodate a bento box and a beverage or two. I hate bags that are too big and I hate carrying more than one bag.

I ate the leftover half a pear while I was preparing the bento and Muffin hardly touched the bread so I ate that on the ride home. Muffin chowed down on the rest.

Crafty: Pillowcase Dress

I'd been reading about the pillowcase dress for a couple weeks and I decided to find out what it was all about. A quick Google search and a few pins on Pinterest later, and I had my first pillowcase dress for Muffin complete.

I used the tutorial from Naptime Crafts. For this first one I did not use an actual pillowcase, but I might for the next one. Rather than do side seams, I kept the fabric folded in half from the first cut and made the one seam a center back seam. I like to be able to tell the back from the front easily. I used grosgrain ribbon to finish the armhole edges rather than folding the edges. You could also use bias tape. Since the fabric had a finished border edge, there was no hemming involved!

Center back seam

Eyelet border

I love this quick, easy dress. Since the shoulder ties are adjustable, this will grow with Muffin into a top as she gets taller.

I could easily sew up all my scrap fabric into a whole collection of them. But I'm going to restrain myself. I'll make a few, to experiment with different lengths and trims. There are plenty of different patterns to make with my scraps. (I received more patterns in the mail Friday and already started cutting out a few things!)

Outdoor Play: Sidewalk Chalk

On New Year's Day we took a walk around the neighborhood to see the colorful rangoli, or chalk drawings, that adorn the front walks of Hindi households to welcome the spirits. On holidays they are a bit fancier than usual. Ours paled in comparison, but Muffin had fun scribbling for a bit.

Outdoor Play is hosted by Greening Sam and Avery and Mama Pea Pod.

Crafty: Christmas Dress

I've got my sew on again, after months (years?) of laying dormant. I made Christmas dresses for Muffin and myself.

I had several parameters for these dresses. I wanted them to match, but not be exactly the same. I wanted to sew with fabrics I already had, so that limited my colors away from red and green. (Too literal for Christmas dresses, anyway.) My inspiration became "Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes," from The Sound of Music song, "My Favorite Things."

Muffin's is McCall's 6015. It's made from white and blue cotton shirtings and lined with the white cotton shirting. Mine is an older McCall's that I think is OOP now, 4581. It's white linen lined with white rayon.

Outdoor Play: Winter Holiday

We took a short holiday this week to get out of the city and show Muffin some nature. It was chillier than she's ever experienced, having lived her whole life in South India. But we think she had fun. We went to Shillong, Meghalaya, in North East India, that little part of India that sticks out between Bangladesh and Bhutan. It was amazing there. I'll be posting more about it on my other blog, Where in the World Am I? this weekend, but for now, some of our outdoor highlights.

Outdoor Play is hosted by Greening Sam and Avery.

Outdoor Play: The Dirt Bar

We have a small patch of grass outside of our house with an even smaller raised garden around two sides of it. I've left one part of the garden free of plants so that Muffin has a place to dig in the dirt. I call it the Dirt Bar. It took several months for her to learn to play with the dirt rather than eat it, but now she's an expert. She bellies up to the bar with a shovel in each hand and goes to work.

Outdoor Play is hosted by Greening Sam and Avery.

Outdoor Play: Scooter Practice

I'm a little late with my Friday postings this week. I had a work project that took up most of my time. But on Saturday afternoon we carved out some outdoor time. After a family walk, Mike reminded me that I still haven't learned to ride my scooter yet. Both cars were out at the mechanic's so the driveway was empty and the sun was in just the right spot so the driveway was shady. Perfect for scooter practice.

I'm afraid to ride my scooter in India although I'd like to ride it somewhere, someday. I'm trying to be brave and do new things so that Muffin learns to be brave too, rather than a 'fraidy cat like me. She loves scooters and I know she will love the day we eventually let her ride one for real. This is her practicing:

She and Mike explored the plants and slimy water on the side of the driveway while I practiced starting the scooter and putting it in gear. (All done very, very carefully with Muffin clear out of the way.) 

It's good for her to see me trying new things.

Outdoor Play is hosted by Greening Sam and Avery.

Outdoor Play: Chasing the Big Kids

Muffin had a blast chasing the big kids around the yard after Thanksgiving dinner.

Outdoor Play is hosted by Greening Sam & Avery.

The Sleeping Chronicles

Our Muffin has had a complicated relationship with sleep. As a newborn she had day-night confusion, sleeping all day and partying like a rock star all night long. She wasn't colicky, she just didn't want to sleep at night. Then, the more she ate, the more she spit up, especially when she was laying down, so we got in the habit of holding her upright for about thirty minutes after she ate to reduce the spitting up. She still yorped all over everything, especially my side of the bed, but she oh-so-angelically slept on my shoulder, allowing me to sleep for short periods of time as well. We had to keep her upright though. Every time we laid her down, whether in her crib or in the bed next to us, she'd wake up. We were dreading years and years of her sleeping on top of us, but we were too tired to argue with the fact that all three of us were sleeping better for the time being.

We read books. We talked to other parents. We were waiting for her to be six weeks old, then three months old, then four months old, waiting for some sort of pattern to establish itself. Then we moved to India, living in hotels for a week along the way. Before the move we'd decided that we wouldn't give any kind of sleep training a try until we were settled in our new home. Too many new environmental factors to deal with, including thirty hours of travel.

Then jet lag happened. I really think this is what set up Muffin to be a sleeper. She was still sleeping on top of me in bed, but she was sleeping for five or six hours straight. Her crib arrived a few days after we did and she seemed too tired to care that she was sleeping in it instead of on top of me, at least during the night. Most nights she was going solid from about eleven until nearly seven the next morning. We still had to feed and cuddle her to sleep. She still wanted no part of crib napping during the day. But those hours at night gave us hope.

By the time Muffin was five months old, we had settled into our permanent house. She had her own room and she was actually sleeping in it at night. She hated napping during the day but I could usually coax her into a snooze if I let her sleep on top of me. Every day was the same pattern though: She'd feed for a bit, doze off, I'd burp her, put her in the crib, and she'd wake up screaming within minutes. We would do this over and over again until we were both exhausted and fell asleep together on the couch, around about the time Frasier reruns would come on and I couldn't risk reaching for the remote to change the channel without waking her. She seemed to prefer being on her stomach and being extremely warm, which all the baby books cautioned against... but it was hard to put her on her back in a cold room knowing she'd wake up in a few minutes. At least when she was on top of me I could see that she was sleeping fine.

Eventually I started to see a pattern to her sleeping habits and I was so happy. So many people had asked me about her schedule that I was beginning to feel inferior, like I was raising some sort of wild, spoiled, untamed monster child. I wasn't happy that I was finally satisfying the schedulers, though. I was happy that Muffin's schedule finally allowed me some freedom. I could say "yes" to eleven o'clock coffee breaks with the other moms in the neighborhood. I had several solid hours where I could go grocery shopping with a happy kid instead of a cranky one. I could take a shower during her morning nap and look forward to a quiet lunch by myself once she was down for an afternoon nap. I felt like I was finally becoming myself again.

The last hurdle was getting her to fall asleep on her own. Because of the spitting up and burping, she'd gotten in the habit of being held until she fell asleep. She is a gassy baby, and as much as we wanted to try crying it out, that doesn't work when the reason she's crying is gas pain rather than something psychological. Most nights, the screaming would be relieved after we picked her up and she burped; she'd fall right to sleep. I really feel like we had no choice but to wait for her digestive system to develop enough to cause her less pain after those bedtime feedings.

Mike does bedtime with Muffin and the nightly routine of soothing her to sleep was really wearing on him. While he was out of town a couple weeks ago I decided to see if Muffin was ready to fall asleep on her own. We had a couple afternoons of me crying on my bed while Muffin cried in hers, but I knew she was crying from being over tired (we both were), not from needing to be burped, so I'd give her five minutes, then ten, then fifteen, then thirty. By the time Mike came home, we had a successful sleeper. She celebrated ten months old this week, along with a full week of falling asleep on her own for both naps and bedtime.

Not every sleepy time is easy. She learned to sit up on her own this week, so she practices that for several minutes by herself before realizing we're not there to cheer her on. Sometimes she gets bored and falls asleep, other times she cries for us. We play it by ear if we're going to go in and soothe her more or let her fuss for another few minutes to see what happens. She often wakes up an hour or two after going to bed at night, but knowing that all she needs is a good burp, it's easy to go in and help her with that.

We know we are lucky right now compared to other babies. And we know that some are better sleepers earlier on than Muffin. I'm going to take the sleep while I can get it and not worry about other babies though. Following Muffin's lead is what worked for us.

Baby Eats

Muffin is nine months old and a voracious eater; I've been meaning to sit down and keep track of everything. I'm fascinated watching her try new foods and even more fascinated by the happy faces and yummy sounds she makes when she absolutely loves something -- which is almost every time she eats.

On Christmas Eve, on her five-month birthday, we gave her rice cereal mixed with formula for the first time. She'd licked pieces of fruit that we held up to her mouth before, but this was her first official meal in the high chair. We tried putting her in the chair several times in the weeks leading up to then but she just wasn't ready to sit up and eat yet.

I did tons of reading to get ready for Muffin to start eating. The books I read include Hungry Monkey, My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus, and Super Baby Food. I went back and forth on cereal or not. Ultimately we decided to use it as her gateway food. She loved it but tired of it quickly. She moved on to mushed fruits and veggies, then chunkier mixes through the food grinder. We've done all the mushing and grinding ourselves rather than buying "baby food." As soon as she showed an interest I started introducing finger foods. We're not completely going with the Baby-Led Solids movement, but we are taking cues from BLS and from Muffin herself. She lets us know what she wants. She loves yogurt, so why should I deny her that just because she can't hold a spoon? She also loves being so proud of herself when she picks up a piece of food and is rewarded with a delicious taste. Two meals a day are generally a finger food combined with a spoon-fed food. She has another two or three meals a day of finger foods. (And between three and four eight-ounce bottles daily.)

Muffin's foods:
oatmeal with vanilla soy milk
rice cereal with vanilla soy milk
raisins
dried apricots
apples
pears
bananas
oranges
edamme cheese
parmesian cheese
cheddar cheese
gluten-free cheerios
gluten-free bread
yogurt
tofu stir-fried with ginger and garlic
paneer (ricotta-like cheese) in spinach curry
refried beans
plain rice
risotto
broccoli stir-fried with ginger and garlic
broccoli steamed and doused with lime juice
lamb
chicken
goat
beef
chili beans
cornbread
polenta
strawberries
cantaloupe
pineapple
watermelon
spicy dahl (lentils)
hummus
macaroni and cheese (both home-baked and gluten-free Annie's)
avocado
salsa
tomato soup
carrots
roasted potatoes
tomatoes
red pepper
yellow pepper
cucumbers
ground flax seed meal
almond meal
quinoa
chicken soup
scrambled eggs
gluten-free pancakes
green beans
dosa (a rice pancake stuffed with spicy potato)
gluten-free banana muffins

New foods on the menu for this week include potato-leek soup and gingered carrots. We are stuffing her with as many different flavors as we can now, before she becomes a picky kid. I was a picky eater so I'm prepared to face it with Muffin.

The Best Coffee in the World

Here's a little note to let you know that the best coffee in the world, Peet's Burundi, is back for a limited time, online only. I'm not just saying it's the best because we lived there and I'm happy when Burundi has great economic opportunities. This really is great-tasting coffee.






Image from Peets.com. I was not compensated in any way for this post. Product was purchased by me for personal consumption.

How Do You Shop for Kids' Clothes?

Crafty Foreign Service has a post up with some ideas for saving money on kids' clothes. Be sure to check out the comments for more great ideas (some from me!). The stores are starting to bring out the spring styles, so now's the time to buy winter clothes on sale and save them for next year.

Baby Legwarmers? Yes.

When I first heard of legwarmers for babies I thought, "How ridiculous." But then I thought, "Hey, they're kinda cute. I'm a little too old for the youthful legwarmers trend, but my baby does get chilly and what's the point of having a little girl if I can't dress her in the fashions that would look silly on me?" When I discovered a 75% off sale at the BabyLegs website I decided that the price was right for trying out baby legwarmers.

I loved them as soon as they arrived. The colors are just as bright and perky as shown on the website. The newborn sizes are perfect arm warmers for my six-month-old. When we were preparing to move to a warm climate I bought tons of short-sleeved shirts but it has been chillier here than I expected, so the arm warmers are helping me get mileage out of those shirts before she outgrows them. The larger sized legwarmers are still a tad too big for her but I can see their potential to fit nicely once she grows into them. I'm so tired of stretching her pants up over her cloth diapers; legwarmers are a great alternative.

The winter clearance sale is still on at BabyLegs! Fill your shopping cart with $75 worth of merchandise from the clearance page and use the coupon code WINTER75 to get 75% off those items. You can also get discounts for subscribing to the newsletter. Coupons cannot be combined, however, so you'll have to be crafty with your ordering to get maximum savings.

*I am an Amazon affiliate. If you purchase from these links or from my store, I will receive a small kickback. I am not affiliated with BabyLegs and was not compensated by them in any way for this post. Goods were purchased by me for personal use.

Threadless Kids

Just because they're babies doesn't mean they can't be hip.

Since our baby is gender neutral right now, shopping for clothes has been a challenge. I hate how there's so much stuff that's specifically boy or specifically girl. There are so many nice colors that could be for either, but put a little ruffle on a t-shirt, and all of a sudden it has to be for a girl. But, a shirt with no ruffles seems so obviously "boy."

I found Threadless Kids through CafeMom. And I fell in love with many of their designs. Most of which can be worn by boys or girls. They are plain t-shirts with simple graphics. Yeah, some of the shirts cost a little more than I'd like to spend on clothes that may only be worn for a few weeks or even days, but I splurged on a couple anyway.

Threadless has rotating designs and rotating $9 deals on kids' clothes. I managed to snap up one of these pictured shirts for $9, which made paying full price for the other one less painful. And you can shop the grown-up store for equally hip t-shirts for yourself.

Threadless and Threadless Kids is a community-oriented store and they have open submissions for designs. Shoppers can vote on designs that they'd like to see on future shirts. They also post new designs every day.

*I was not compensated for this post. Items were purchased by me for personal use.

Packing a Bag

I was poking around at some pregnancy-and-mom forums this morning and came across a thread of women talking about packing their bag for the hospital. This had never occurred to me. I'm nearly 34 weeks, and some of these women have had their bags packed since around week 30. Sure, there's something to be said for being prepared for an emergency. But in my mind being prepared for emergencies means having enough bottled water and canned goods stocked in case of earthquakes or other natural disasters, or having a suitcase packed for evacuation from a politically unstable third-world country. Going to the hospital (in a modern, developed nation) for something routine like childbirth hadn't popped up on my contingency-planning radar until reading about it this morning.

I guess I'll pull out my airplane carry-on bag and replace a few things. What things, I'm not quite sure other than pajamas and clean underwear. Maybe some snacks. I'm not in the mindset of packing for two yet, but some baby outfits and diapers would probably be a good idea.

What goes into a hospital-stay bag?

My First Purchases

At just about 33 weeks pregnant, I finally made my first purchases for the baby. We'd visited some stores when we were in the United States during weeks 11 through 13 so we could put together a registry, but we didn't want to start buying anything until we were firmly back here for the birth. And then, even once I arrived, I tried to put it off until I moved from my hotel to our summer rental just so I wouldn't have as much stuff cluttering up the room and needing to be moved.

But somehow my car ended up at Babies R Us this morning on the way to Barnes and Noble. And lots of cute clothes were on sale. Not knowing if we're having a boy or girl really makes you have to search for clothes that are original and not the same green frog or yellow duck that gets the "gender neutral" treatment. I found lots of animal-theme clothes that are probably for boys, but with the right accessories, like an obvious pink sunhat, could be easily worn by a girl. (Seriously though, everyone who knows us and knows the baby will know the gender; curious strangers can mind their own business.) (Another aside: I saw the cutest pink baby fedora today and for the first time I wished I knew the gender so I could have bought it for a girl. If they had it in my size I would have bought it for myself.)

Now that I have these clothes, what do I do with them? Due to the nature of sales, there was very little in newborn and 0-3 sizes so most of what I bought can be packed away for a few months. But I'm guessing the clothes should be washed before the baby wears them. And what about the eventual clothes I'll be getting in the smaller sizes? How do you know when to start washing versus when the baby will be coming home versus what if the baby is huge and doesn't fit into all those washed clothes that now cannot be returned? So much to consider with this parenting gig.

Good-bye, Navel Ring

We took my navel ring out today. I've had it for over ten years with not a sign of infection or even discomfort, but my expanding stomach has proved to be too much. The area was turning red and while a nurse told me it wasn't infected, it definitely started to have a bruised feeling, especially when something brushed up against it. So Mike grabbed some pliers, I held my breath and closed my eyes because I thought that such an amateur attempt might hurt, but within seconds the procedure was finished, painlessly. I put the ring away as a keepsake for the baby book some day. And maybe after ten years it's time for a new one.

I think some of the achiness I've been feeling in my abdomen lately has been coming from the ring, not from any internal doings. I sleep with my stomach leaned up against a pillow, and when I did so for a nap this afternoon I felt much more comfortable than I have the last few evenings.

It's been a part of me for so long, but it was time to let it go.

Nice Gams

I had a revelation this weekend. The exercise I need to do to keep my blood sugar levels under control is finally making me feel good instead of awful. And it's a totally physical, vain thing that clued me in to this. I realized my legs look good again. A few months of not running or hiking made all my muscle tone disappear but the walking up and down hills and stairs and the stepping with the Wii fit for the last few weeks is bringing it back. I like that and I want to keep it.

When deciding on what to wear on Saturday night for dinner at a friend's house, I chose the short shorts I would have chosen pre-pregnancy rather than the jeans that have been covering up my legs for weeks. I put on a pair of wedge sandals and my legs looked and felt great.

Now I'm excited and happy to be working out again. I'm still taking it slow and easy, because I can't go very far without feeling winded and the extra weight I'm carrying around is aggravating some old aches and pains from my heavy mileage days.

My main reason for exercising is the health of me and the baby, but I'm enjoying the extra push I'm getting from liking my body again. It's been feeling like someone else's body for a while.

Gestational Diabetes

I hate the term, but by some of the calculations, scales, charts, and guidelines used by some doctors, I have it. In actuality, my blood sugar seems to be too high sometimes and too low sometimes, and those "too high" times happened when I was having my one-hour and then my three-hour glucose test. And the "too low" instances were a little troubling as well. My doctors are being extremely conservative and cautious because I'm living in a poor country in Central Africa.

I've been doing a lot of research on gestational diabetes. It seems that some people just plain don't believe in it, or think that there really are not harmful side effects. Even if the only side effect is a large baby at birth, I'd like to avoid that. I'm small.

But the vast majority of publications agree that you shouldn't take any risks with it. And I'm all for erring on the side of exercise and better nutrition. It's just a huge pain. My doctor had me consult with a nutritionist. Sugar is out, except for fresh fruit and some milk and yogurt. Healthy fats are in. I covered most of my dietary issues earlier this week at What I Eat. I need to eat more, but the selection of foods I should eat and can eat keeps getting narrower.

While the food is challenging, the harder part is the exercise. I'm supposed to be walking for fifteen minutes after each meal. My morning walk is wonderful; it's still cool and pleasant outside. I hate doing it some days, but it's still preferable to my lunchtime walk, either in the hot sun or pacing back and forth in my small, but air-conditioned, office. And my post-dinner walk is a drag because the only place I can safely do it is by doing laps on our terrace. Plus I'm pretty tired by then and the thought of pulling on my sneakers one more time really gets me down.

Then there's the glucose monitoring. I've been doing it four times a day for the last two weeks, and I have another week of doing it that often before I've proved that I can keep my levels even. Then I can go down to twice a day. I don't hate needles; I'm not squeamish about blood. I just hate doing it, especially so many times a day. (I have an upcoming post on how difficult it's been to secure a good glucose monitor here. I was afraid I'd get sent back to the States early because of it.)

All this exercise and healthy eating is supposed to make me feel better, but it's not. To combat fatigue and mood swings, all the books and all the doctors recommend exercise and healthy eating. Logically I know I'm fine because my sugar levels are okay now. I also know in the rational part of my brain that it's all good for the baby. But instead of having more energy and a positive mental attitude, I'm even more drained and prone to mood swings than I was before I started this regime. And that's extremely frustrating.

I know that in the grand scheme of things, these are all small sacrifices to make for the health of the baby. (I've been gluten-free for several years now; I know all about making sacrifices for health, and now I have another person's health involved as well.) I just wish I could get to the point where that logical knowledge made the daily decisions and activities a little bit easier instead of a huge chore.