Update on Munchkin cuteness

The Munchkin is not getting any less cute as time goes by.  In fact, I like her more and more.  Here is the new list of cuteness:

1.  At the zoo today, she decided that goats (in the petting zoo) are the best things EVER, and continued to adore them even after one head butted her and knocked her down.  The keeper put it away and the Munchkin stood at its gate calling to it over and over again until I took her out of the petting zoo.  She called it "kitty" but all animals are kitties still, including the moose.  If she could have pet the wallabies, they might have ranked with the goats, but it's a small step down.

2.  When the kiddo is entertaining herself, she carries things back and forth between toddler selected locations several times and it's hysterical.  Today's selection of items was 1 plastic spoon, 1 dish towel, 1 doll sweater, 1 wash cloth, and a baby doll.  These items moved from the coffee table to the doormat near the patio and back again no less than 5 times in approximately 5 minutes.

3.  The Munchkin is a little dicey with consonants these days (totally normal I am assured), so her "baby" is called "ye-yee" like yeti without the T.  The thought of her naming her baby after a snow monster keeps making me laugh.

4.  Any time there are rocks, she will drop everything else to get the rocks.  You might think that her daddy is a geologist and her mommy is a rock hound (he totally married me for my tourmaline.  It's nice tourmaline).  I never thought a love of rock was genetic, but I may be mistaken.  Car seat cupholders make excellent places to store car rocks when you don't want to bring them in to daycare.

5.  The kid is starting to get interested in her potty, and keeps wanting to put her baby on the potty.  Right now this process involves shoving the baby head first into the (molded plastic) potty as hard as she can.  Thank God her baby is machine washable.

Toddlers are awesome.

Not dropping off the face of the earth.

The last few weeks have been survival mode again.  DH is off at an earth-shatteringly important army training (still without a CPAP, but that's a rant for a different day) so I've been solo parenting.  This one is long-ish at over a month.  I miss him.  The good news is that we are surviving, which is helped by better (if not yet good) sleep by the Munchkin and also netflix.

I've had netflix on a lot since DH left.  I mostly watch in the evenings, since I try to keep the days mostly tv free for the kiddo.  We generally watch something as a family after dinner before bed, and once the kid goes to sleep, the house is disturbingly quiet and lonely, so Netflix stays on.  We got rid of tv a while ago, so it's netflix or hulu, and hulu mostly annoys me. I like having no ads.

My recent list of shows includes The Glades, Fringe, and Hole in the Wall.  I started Fringe right before DH left, but he doesn't like it so I don't have to feel guilty watching all of it while he's gone.  Generally we try to watch shows we both like together.  He does like the Glades, but they got new episodes and a month is a long time.  He'll need space out time when he gets home anyway.  Hole in the Wall was a recent discovery and it's a totally silly game show where people try to fit through shaped cut-outs in a wall or else get pushed into a pool.  It's totally mindless and very fun to watch.

With the solo parenting, the Munchkin does watch more tv than when DH is home.  When I need a show for her, my staples are Mythbusters and Dinosaur Train.  She likes both of them.  Today I discovered something called Color and Sound (I think?) that's all people drawing pictures to classical music.  It's designed for babies, and I got a 30 min nap while it was playing.  We tried Yo Gabba Gabba, but it made her cry, so that's out for a while.  Her favorite recent tv clip was a bunch of singing corpses from a Fringe episode.  I really need to play that clip again and videotape the kid's reaction, because it was too funny.  I probably lose parenting points, but such is life.

While watching all this tv, I have been doing something neat.  Do you remember that hobby I had before I got pregnant?  The one with sticks and string?  Yep.  I'm knitting again.  SO MUCH FUN.  This may be survival mode, but it's a much prettier kind of survival than even a few months ago.  DH still needs to get his butt home, but there will blankets and scarves and silly tv until then.  And maybe even semi-regular blogging.

"ALL DAY"

My daughter has one book that I really hate.  It's called Furry Friends.  The author is a diabolical sadist who hates parents.  Of course my daughter loves it.  That's the only reason why it hasn't been permanently "lost".  Oh, and it's short.  It involves a series of improbable animals all wanting to be friends with each other, and playing together "all day".

My daughter has started talking a bunch more since last week's post, and her new favorite thing is to read this book over and over and over again saying "ALL DAH" over and over and over and over and over again.  In fact, "all dah" goes with all books now.  We were reading Moo, Baa, La la la, and the whole book was "all day".  She did pause for a minute or so to work on "la la la" ("ah ah ah"), but then we moved back to the reliable "all dah".

Then, this morning, my daughter decided to mix it up by adding read it again to her vocabulary ("ree-ditty-ghen").  How could I say no to that, especially with Let's Be Friends deep under the couch?  There was some other stuff I wanted to do today, but apparently, "all dah" is booked.

Words

My kid (16 months now) is doing this developmentally appropriate, but incredibly annoying thing where she uses a word once and then it vanishes from her vocabulary.  I'm assured that they will come back eventually, but it's a frustrating wait.  Here is a collection of words she is using or has used:

Regular usage:

"kit-tee" kitty
"neh" water
"dada" an all purpose word that can mean daddy or anything she wants
"nu-nu" banana
"all done" sign language symbol

One time words:

"chow-ee bown" charlie brown
"mama"  mama
"teet" tweet -- what a bird says
"cack" quack
"gae-doon" gate down -- what she says when I'm on the opposite side of a gate
"pree" not sure if pretty or green (pointing to the butterfly at the end of The Very Hungry Caterpillar"
"got it" when going for my mom's cats

There have been more, but those are the ones I can think of right now.

New recipes

Each week I've been trying at least one new recipe to jazz up the meal planning.  Meal planning is serious business around here as food is one of our largest expenses.  We have dairy and soy allergies, so we can't just eat something grabbed from the supermarket unless that thing is a rotisserie chicken or a sushi roll.  Between whey (milk protein) and soy, about 90% of processed or convenience food is out.  Also, my husband and daughter NEED meat at every meal.  My husband becomes an unbearable grouch without it, and my daughter gets diaper rash from hell.  When I figured out that meat cured her diaper rash, it was a giant headtilt moment for me, but we'll go with what works.  Meat isn't cheap either, so we meal plan.

This week I tried two new recipes.  I like cooking on Sunday when I can swing it.  DH is there to help with the Munchkin, and it's nice to know the fridge is stocked with lunch food for the week.

Recipe 1:  Crock pot lemon chicken from here

Modifications:  I forgot the sugar and added ginger to the crockpot.  Also, I used chicken leg quarters instead of cut up thighs.

Thoughts:  Good.  "Very carroty" according to DH.  This will go into rotation.  Definitely needs the rice made separately, which does require a little more thought than some crock pot meals.

Recipe 2:  Meat pie.  I made this one up myself.

Ingredients:  Store pie crust (the kind with lard, not butter), 1lb ground beef, frozen mixed veggies, an onion, 1/4C flour, 1/2C beef broth, a little bit of fake butter (soy free), worschteshire sauce (however you spell it), sweet paprika, aleppo pepper, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper.

Brown ground beef and set aside.  Chop and saute onion.  Add back in the beef and veggies.  Season.  Put into pie crust and then into 425F oven for 20 min.

Thoughts:  DH thought it was too spicy, but the Munchkin and I loved it.  In fact, I had it for breakfast and lunch yesterday.  This will go into rotation too.

Homemade ice cream

My husband gave me an ice cream maker for mother's day and I've been experimenting, and I thought I would share my recipes here.  All of these are dairy and soy free since both my daughter and I have allergies.  The ice cream maker takes 1L of mix to make 1.5L of ice cream.  It's electric and generally takes about 40 min to get ice cream.  It's much softer than commercial ice cream, but still tastes good.

First attempt:  Chocolate banana ice cream

Ingredients:  5 bananas, and all the rest chocolate almond milk

Thoughts:  Very banana-y.  Not wild about this flavor mix, although my daughter likes it, and it's low enough in sugar that I don't feel bad letting her have the odd bite.

Second attempt:  Strawberry sorbet (recipe per the ice cream maker pamphlet)

Ingredients:  2C strawberries, 2C water, splash of lemon juice, 1/3C sugar

Thoughts:  Very tasty.  We will be making this again.

Third attempt:  Chocolate strawberry chip

Ingredients:  2C strawberries, 2C chocolate almond milk, 1C dairy-free chocolate chips

Thoughts:  Very good flavor, but the chips were too hard after being frozen into the ice cream mix.  Will be making this without chips next time.

Tomorrow's attempt:  Peanut butter vanilla ice cream

Ingredients:  Unsweetened peanut butter, unsweetened almond milk, vanilla, sugar (we didn't have vanilla almond milk, but that might be a good investment if I like this flavor)

Thoughts:  The bowl needs to be frozen for 24 hours between ice cream batches, and my husband wanted the strawberry tonight.  I have high hopes for this flavor

Most of these are pretty low sugar so I feel pretty good about them as an occasional treat.  Next I need to learn to make lemon sorbet.

Sidewalk chalk

We had our first adventure in sidewalk chalk today.  The Munchkin didn't really understand drawing with it, but she very much liked carrying the giant chalk around.

I have video, but am having some trouble uploading it.  I'll put the video in tomorrow.

Headline: Wifely Nagging Pays Off

I'm not generally a fan of nagging as a marital strategy, but there are times when I make an exception.  My husband's health is an exception.  He is a victim of what I will call medical stupidity.  He never wants to go to the doctor because it's probably not that bad anyway, so it's really just a waste of time.  This is definitely a case of it takes one to know one, because examples of my own medical stupidity are legion.  The most recent one was me not wanting to go to the ER even though I hurt my foot so badly I couldn't walk 50 ft without crying and wanted my husband to leave work so he could carry the baby up the stairs for me since I didn't think I could.  However, this post is about my nagging him and not the other way around.

DH has been tired for at least 2 years now, and probably longer.  He sleeps 8 hours and is still tired.  This past year he hasn't had a single day where he felt rested.  Not one.  Given we have a crappy sleeping 1 year old, but I do 98% of the night parenting, and he is always more tired than me.  This is not normal.  My husband didn't think it was a big deal, probably because it's been that way for him for so long.  So I nagged.

I nagged a lot.  It was over months.  I made him get blood tests.  Normal-ish.  I made him go see a therapist in case it was depression.  Nope.  Finally, I made him go get a sleep study.  Bingo.  The results came back as sleep apnea.  He stops breathing on average 77 times an hour when he sleeps.  This one was low on my list since DH doesn't snore.  It turns out there's more than one kind of apnea and my husband has the non-snoring kind.  We are now waiting on specialist appointments and a CPAP and all kinds of things.

The waiting is weird.  In some ways knowing is scarier than not knowing because I worry when he sleeps now.  Also, it's the Army and it's taking longer than I think it should to get appropriate follow up.  On the other hand, I also feel vindicated.  My instinct was right.  Something really was wrong.

The good news is that I can stop nagging for a while and soon DH will be able to get a good night's sleep.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy mother's day to all of you for whom the title is appropriate.  My Munchkin is too young to have much to say about mother's day yet, but she's giving me a molar, so a lot of what she says is hooting in pain and despair about her mouth and/or not being able to talk.  On the other hand, she spent a big chunk of time hiding in the sheer curtain samples at sears yesterday, which is possibly the cutest thing I have ever seen in my whole life.  Of course, as soon as I got out my phone to get some video, she ran away, but that's 1 year olds for you.

My husband gave me some great presents, but they came with a condition.  I had to promise not to sell the Kid on ebay this year, no matter how good the going rate.  He and I were mostly kidding.  Mostly.  Anyway, he got me an ice cream maker, which is an extremely thoughtful gift for someone who can't have dairy or soy.  The store ice cream I like is over $6 for a small container, so I could rarely justify it.  I also got a back pillow for reading in bed and some sunglasses.

Today, we had french toast at home, family snuggle time, ran some errands, and went to the park.  I hope your mother's day is as good as mine has been.

Formatting

I'm totally over-thinking this, but all the formatting options are making my head spin as I play with this blog again.  I think I've got something I like that's also readable now.  If you can't read this, it will be hard for you to tell me about it, but use your telepathic powers to convey annoyance in my direction.  I'm sure that will work.  Also, I hope you like the space scene as much as I do.  So beautiful.

Proof of adorableness of the 1 year old.

A Youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj0FnnyZIUA

I love her curls.

Maybe I'll even figure out how to embed videos here sooner or later.

Catching up.

Hi blog.  It's nice to see you again.  Yeah, it's been a while.  Me?  I'm good.  It's been a crazy few years.  I had a baby.  She's 1 now and totally adorable.  She even finally got over that screaming all the time thing, which is a real plus.  Still doesn't sleep, but she eats really well, so there's that.  We live in CO now.  My husband?  DH is good.  He's getting out of the Army sometime in December so we're looking forward to that.  We're about to enter job hunting and figuring out where to live excitement. By excitement, I mean hell, of course, but I'm trying to keep a good attitude about it.  If we do this right, we can find a place to settle down for at least the next 5-10 years.  That knitting obsession?  Well, I've certainly done less of it since the Munchkin showed up, but I love it as much as ever.

I've got to run now, but we definitely need to catch up more often.  Next week?  Let's make it a date.

It could be worse.

Seriously:

http://news.yahoo.com/us-man-stung-scorpion-commercial-flight-180744819.html

A man got stung by a scorpion on an airline flight.  And I thought all I had to worry about when flying was security checks . . .

You know you've been to a fiber festival when . . .

• You come home with a pocket full of Cormo roving.
• You saw a bunny getting sheared (super cute!)
• A few skeins of Kauni that you've been dreaming of mysteriously fall into your shopping bag (yes, I paid for them).
• A knitting book you never knew you needed calls your name -- Sock Yarn One Skein Wonders.  
• Your mother in law picks out the kit she wants you to knit her for Christmas -- a beaded wire necklace.  It's pretty :-)

Midwest Folk and Fiber Festival is definitely a good time.  If you get a chance, you should go next year.

Three weeks, 2500 miles

It has been 3 weeks since K left for Afghanistan.  In that time, I have driven from Colorado to Illinois, from  Illinois to Detroit, from Detroit to Illinois, and run a million errands.  I have literally put 2500 miles on my car in the last 3 weeks.

It has also been an emotionally taxing few weeks.  First, K left (down).  Then I packed up the apartment (down) and drove back to IL and got to spend time with pets and friends (up).  Then I drove to Detroit for my best friend's graduation from her surgical residency (up).  Then, I found out my cat was sick (hopefully much better now -- next checkup Tuesday) (down), and one of K's ferrets has been diagnosed with lymphoma (down).

My kitty Lemur.

Our sick girl Sushi.  This is a normal sleeping position for a ferret.  I know.  They're weird.

Two other cats need to go to the vet this week (down), and I am waiting to hear if I got an apartment close to school for this year (up I hope, but I'll have to move again (urg)).  There is another big thing too, but that one needs to stay internet dark until September.

So today, I only had 90 miles of driving to do (MIL to airport), and have been enjoying my free time.  I am working on a Camp Loopy project right now, and it is nice and simple and pretty.

Daybreak, medium size.

It is the Daybreak shawl.  I'm knitting it in Loopy Solids color Tangerine, and Dream in Color Everlasting color Posy.  I'm on stripe 9 of 16, and it's slow going as it's getting bigger every row.  Still, it's nice relaxing knitting, and looks just the way I hoped it would.

Hopefully in the next two or so weeks life will settle down a notch or three.  In the meantime, I'm striping.

So I fell off the blogging wagon for a while.

It's been that kind of year.  Short version.  Got married in December, husband sent to Colorado Springs by the Army, I picked up an extra class of students at school, then I took a leave of absence for the fourth quarter, moved out to Colorado Springs, baked lots of bread, husband now in Afghanistan for the next year, and I'm back in IL.  Whew.  And I knitted.

And today I planted the veggie garden :-)  I'm not going to be living with my mother in law this year, but she did graciously allow me to take over chunks of her garden with vegetables.

A few comments on veggie shopping:

• Home Depot had 5 (FIVE) different kinds of basil today.  I only picked two, and may go back for the other three soon.  They smelled GOOD.  I got spicy and thai, but I think I need cinnamon basil too . . . 
• The hot peppers were all labelled this year, which will make them both less surprising and somehow less fun.  Last year my "hot pepper" was wonderful, and even though I bought the same kind, it feels less exciting with "serrano" on the pot.
• I have spaced the cucumber and squash farther away from each other this year.  My mother in law had requested that I try to prevent them from climbing the tree, but I think that's overly optimistic.  And there's something cheerful about cucumbers that could fall on your head at any time.
• I bought a tomato called "Mr. Stripey".  I love that Home Depot carries the heirloom kinds now.  And the name . . . "Mr. Stripey" :-)  *giggle*
• I almost bought the lemon tomatoes, but I figured lemon cucumbers were enough unexpectedly yellow vegetables.

Gardens make me happy in a way that having my husband halfway around the world does not.  Hug your family, and dream of vegetables.  I have a Camp Loopy project to work on.

Soup!

It has been REALLY cold here in IL lately.  Today it's up to a balmy 6F.  So, I have made soup.  Specifically, two kinds of soup.  Here are the recipes, for when I want to replicate them later, or if you have a need for good soup where you live.

Lamb-Cous Cous Soup

2 lbs lamb
3 cups dry pearl couscous
1 bunch of celery, chopped fine
6 carrots, chopped fine
1 large onion
1 bunch cilantro
1 sq inch of fresh ginger, chopped fine
3 cloves garlic
12C homemade lamb stock
1 can tomato paste
some olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

I sauteed the garlic, onions, and fresh ginger in the olive oil.  Then I added the lamb and cilantro, and browned the lamb.  I added everything else at that point, and simmered it for about an hour.  It makes a tasty lamb soup, where the couscous melts in your mouth.  It's good.

Frontier Lentil Soup

This one was made from a soup mix, but I modified it heavily.  This is what I added to the lentils and seasonings:
Spicy Italian turkey sausage
3 cloves garlic
1 sq inch fresh ginger, chopped fine
1 bunch of parsley
1 large onion, chopped fine
1 bunch of celery, chopped fine
6 carrots, chopped fine
12C beef stock (made with Penzey's Soup Base)
1 28oz can of diced tomatoes

I sauteed the onions, garlic, and ginger.  Then I browned the sausage.  Once that was done, I added the lentils, seasoning pack, and all other ingredients except the tomatoes.  I simmered it for one hour, then added the tomatoes and simmered it for another 20 min.  This makes a zesty lentil soup.  It has lots of texture and good flavor.  It's a good warming soup.

I hope you're keeping warm and have lots of good food to help.

Decisions for the new year

I am back from my honeymoon in CO.  It was gorgeous, and I'll post pictures soon.  It was a very good, but very intense few weeks.

Now I have some serious decisions to make.  Because K is active duty military and has been informed of his deployment date, it is possible/likely that it will be 18 months before we can spend more than 2 weeks at a time within 1000 miles of each other.  It might be 8 weeks total, but probably less.  The exception to that is if I make some drastic changes to my life.  I am unsure if this is a good idea or not.

I am alternating beating my head against a wall and knitting.  I made it as far as a heel on a new sock (airplanes are good for this).  I swear I'll get some pictures of that too, although it's not terribly exciting.  It's a plain stockinette sock, but it is a self striping yarn in my favorite colors.

I also started a new scarf with some blue heathered wool (on sale!) from a yarn store in Colorado Springs.  The store is called Knitter's Kove, and it seemed wonderful from my one visit.  The scarf has dropped stitches and reminds me of monster eyes.  This too would probably make more sense with pictures.

It's a new year, and there are some wonderful things and huge challenges on the horizon.  Once decisions get made, life has got to get easier.  Maybe I'll even be able to cope with knitting that isn't garter stitch.  Otherwise, I'll just start an afghan.

What I did this past Saturday.

This is a picture of my wedding.

The vows.

No, I'm not happy :-)

We didn't tell the bridesmaids or groomsmen ahead of time about the wedding.  But they got buttons.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Things I am thankful for:

1.  Kevin.  He makes my life better in so many little ways, and I am still burbling with joy to be marrying him.  I love you lots.

2.  The rest of my family, both by blood and by choice.  I could not live without you and your support.  This does not begin to cover the thanks I owe to all of you.

3.  My pets.  Kitties to cuddle, and ferrets to crawl up my sleeves.  Without their love and the laughter they give me, my life would be poorer.

4.  My job.  It's not perfect, and never will be.  However, I love doing it, and it's nice to have something solid and mine in the midst of this crazy year.

5.  Knitting.  I come back to it again and again.  When I'm happy, I knit.  When I'm sad, I knit.  When I'm lonely, I knit.  When I'm bored, I knit.  Without you, my hands would twitch and I would be infinitely less stable.

6.  The material things.  Home, food, heat, water, electric, internet, phone, nice clothes, stash yarn.  Taken for granted every day, but would be sorely missed if I could not have them.

7.  The little comforts that make the days better.  Trader Joe's peppermint Joe-Joes cookies (aka "the crack cookies"), sparkly eyeshadow, excellent loose tea in large quantities.

I hope you are as blessed as I am this Thanksgiving.