They can't be serious.

SIGH.

Playgrounds: They're safer but still can be dangerous

Actual quote from this article:

DANGERS LURK AT EVERY SLIDE, SWING AND CLIMBING WALL

I swear to your god that I didn't add the allcaps.

...

For fuck's sake.

Mama Thursday: Not At All Bitter

I was just reminded that the Minnesota Renaissance Festival is fast approaching once again. I haven't gone in years because you just about have to take out a second mortgage to be able to afford it. We certainly won't be going this year unless we win the lottery (or the job lottery) since Husband was laid off this week.

But I got to thinking: I will soon be able to take my daughter to the Ren Fest and dress her up like a fairy.

WHEEEEEEEEE!

I used to be a Ren Fest dork. I had my puffy shirt and puffy pants, a whole collection of silly hats with all manner of feathers and velvet. I had a set of Crystal Stix. I had leather pouches and pan's horns and a rat on a leash. One of my high school English teachers (Peltzman) was Lord High Mayor (maybe he still is?) Oh yes.

Then I started paying my own bills and discovered just how expensive it all is. Damn.

What does all this nerdery have to do with Mama Thursday? Getting back to the fairy-dressing-up, the Ren Fest represents yet another place where I can unabashedly live vicariously through my child. I did not grow up with the most, shall we say, doting parents. While this experience has made me into surprisingly self-sufficient human being, it has also perpetrated the long history of family members who are emotional voids who have questionable interpersonal skills. So as a result I was never dressed up in adorable costumes as a child.

The cycle of abuse ends here.

(Other things Lily will get to do: visit Disney World with her family, take regular trips to the zoo and other local attractions, be read to every day, learn how to change the oil and make other small to moderate repairs on a car, not be allowed a computer or TV in her bedroom.)

Whoops, no foodblogging yesterday

My brain died a little yesterday from a combination of seeing Watchmen and barely getting any sleep the night before so here is a picture of a monkey:

Mama Thursday: Product Endorsements

I've got a couple of products for which I'd like to throw down some endorsements.

The first is the Rockabye Baby CDs. First of all, how hilarious is this? They take rock bands' music and turn them into lullabies via the magic of the vibraphone and other lullabye-ish instruments. I picked up the Led Zeppelin CD at Pacifier. I personally don't care for Zep but Husband has a perpetual hard-on for them so I got it for him. The reason I dislike them so much is the vocals. If I don't have to listen to Robert Plant's discordant screeching then I'm totally fine with the music. I've actually been playing this CD a lot lately. It's in the background when I'm reading to or feeding Lily. Mama and baby give this one two thumbs up and we're looking forward to picking up the Green Day, Pixies, and Clash versions soon. You can get the CDs online at the Rockabye Baby website for about $17 each or pick it up at specialty baby stores for around $18-20.

Next is the gr8x Self-Inflating Feeding Pillow. It's been a pain in my ass to feed Lily when we're out and about and I don't have access to the Boppy. I end up hunched over and Lily is uncomfortable resting on my forearm with her legs dangling off my lap. I've been looking for an inflatable feeding pillow for a while but it seems like they've all been discontinued for an unknown reason. I'm looking at you, My Brest Friend. I actually tried to order the gr8x (oooh I hate it when companies don't capitalize their own name!) pillow from a website a few weeks ago but they were out of stock. I persevered and was finally able to purchase it from the official distributor. I just received it this week. It has a valve which you open and close by turning a knob at the end. It self inflates when you unroll it and deflates when you roll it up again and close the valve. It doesn't offer as much loft as a Boppy but it's just enough to get Lily up to proper boob access height. Mostly it supports her legs so she's not being dragged down via gravity. It rolls up and goes into its drawstring bag. The bag is about 12" high and 6" wide and squishes down to fit into our backpack-style diaper bag. I couldn't be more thrilled with this product. It's about $50 plus shipping but SO WORTH IT.

Go forth and consume.

Foodie Tuesday: Simple, Cheap, Boring.

I can't believe it's Tuesday again. And I can't believe that another week has gone by in which I have done nothing particularly spectactular in the kitchen. We have, however, spent large amounts of money on food. I've started clipping coupons and using http://www.couponmom.com so that has helped a lot. We saved $14 at Cub last week and I saved $7 at Target yesterday. Not too shabby.

We put up the fence this weekend (YAY!) so naturally we had to feed our helpers. Saturday was your standard burgers on the grill. I made a pasta salad with salami, parmesan, peppers, and olives that was really pretty bland. I think the missing ingredient was garlic. Damnit. I knew I forgot something.

I made fajitas on Sunday with chicken, shrimp, and steak marinated in lime juice, oil, cumin, chili powder, and Sazon Goya (con culantro y achiote). I haven't done much cooking with Sazon Goya so I just hoped for the best and tossed it into the marinade. Despite the unnatural orange color it lent to the chicken and shrimp I think it really made the meal. Berries are all over the grocery stores right now so there were blueberries and strawberries on angelfood cake for dessert.

What else…. Last week I put a small beef roast in the crockpot with salt, pepper, and onion soup mix. We had roast beef for dinner and the next day I shredded the meat and added seasonings for tacos. Num.

It's been all about simple food lately. Hopefully by next week I'll have some more exciting things to blog about. Right now I'm trying to process some information I got from a psychic.

Wondering...

Why do we call the forest "the woods?" Shouldn't we call it "the trees?"

"Home" Sweet "Home"

Here's what Deli Express considers "homestyle white bread":
Unbleached Wheat Flour, Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Yeast, Liquid Soy Oil, Salt, Whey Solids, Yeast Nutrients (Monocalcium Phosphate, Calcium Sulfate, Ammonium Sulfate, Potassium Iodate), Monoglycerides, Dough Conditioners (Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Calcium Peroxide), Malted Barley Flour, Calcium Propionate (To Retard Spoilage), Ferrous Sulfate (Iron), Niacin, Thiamine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Riboflavin (Vitamin B12), Folic Acid.

Something tells me that if they used real sugar they wouldn't need the "Yeast Nutrients."

Sigh.

I'm going home and baking bread. My white bread consists of flour, yeast, milk, water, salt, and butter.

Drama! Fence! Drama!

It's been a while since I broke out my Angry Consumer voice. It's simultaneously stressful and exhilarating.

We ordered parts for our privacy fence project last Saturday for delivery yesterday. We had to go back on Tuesday to change up the posts (we had mistakenly gotten the 10' posts and only needed the 8' ones) and add on some stakes and weed barrier and mulch and whatnot. We went up to the order desk at Menards, explained what happened, and dude printed up a new pick list and told us to go to the service desk to take care of the money situation. Dude asked us if we wanted the new stuff to arrive via delivery like the stuff we ordered previously, and we said yes. 8' fence posts and 10 bags of mulch aren't fitting in the ol' Cavalier, after all.

I saw the giant truck roll down the street in front of our house when I got home yesterday. I was giddy. We're three days away from shutting out our crazy neighbors! The truck driver ended up having to drop off the stuff in front of our house because his forklift truck front situation was too big to maneuver in the alley. OK, whatever. He dropped off the pallet of cement. He came back and dropped off the pallet of fence panels. He… drove off?

Woah, we're missing like $600 worth of stuff.

I got on the horn with the Menards delivery desk. Where's our stuff? He finds our order(s) and calls back. The rest of our stuff never ended up on the delivery schedule. Huh? He ummed and ahhed and was much more interested in trying to figure out whose fault it was than actually getting our stuff to our house. "Look," I said, mustering up my most patient-and-polite-but-not-taking-any-shit-angry-consumer voice, "I don't care whose fault it was because I know it wasn't ours. The bottom line is that we need our fence parts at our house by tomorrow afternoon." I know from retail experience that whenever a customer starts talking about the "bottom line" it's extremely fucking annoying and douchey but at that point I was sick of his blame game. I actually feel bad about that today. But still, we have people planning on coming over and helping with this fence project and can't change everyone's plans at the last minute, especially when the bulk of the stuff was ordered a full week in advance. He ummmed and ahhed a little bit more and said that he'd send a pickup truck with our stuff today.

And lo, as I was walking out to the garage to retrieve my scooter this morning bright and early at 6:30 am, there was a guy with a Menards pickup just finishing dropping off all the rest of our stuff. I didn't get a chance to make sure that everything was there (it fucking better be) but I am once again at peace.

And giddy. Did I mention I was giddy?

Mama Thursday: hee hee hee!

How could this NOT make your day?

Foodie Tuesday: a meal plan

Haven't been doing a lot of cooking lately due to a lack of time to go to the grocery store but that will be remedied tonight. My Foodie Tuesday contribution this week is my ultra-nerdy meal planning spreadsheet.

Yes, I use a spreadsheet to do my meal planning.

In my pre-baby life I had time to actually sit down and calculate calories. Yeeeaaahhh, that doesn't happen so much anymore.

Here you go -- enjoy: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tIiwoyJHeAMBsQe8nVA91Pg

Mama Thursday: The wonder coming out of my chest

This probably doesn't come as a surprise to some of you but I'm breastfeeding Lily. All health benefits aside, have you seen the price of formula? I'm lucky that I'm definitely not lacking in the milk production department as so many other mothers I've talked to lately. Since I'm forced to work full time I have to pump several times a day. Thankfully my office has a dedicated room for this and I don't have to slink around in some manky bathroom stall like some of my fellow lactating sisters.

Pumping at work was definitely something I had to get used to. The awkwardness of being in a state of undress at the office made things difficult at first -- at least mentally (is the door locked? Is it really locked?). Physically I've never had a problem with letdown or production. I'm like one of those fountains in Italy, only instead of liquid coming out from below the waist it's all up top.

*Yet Another Thing They Don't Tell You About Pregnancy And Motherhood: You can spray milk. Like a squirt gun. Or a lawn sprinkler. Involuntarily.

I was hauling my heavy-ass Pump In Style pump to and from work until I figured out that my office has a pump that lives in the pumping room that works very well. And it just so happened I had the piston and connector that fits on it. I'm not sure why but the lady that I bought my pump from on Craigslist included it with everything else. Score!

I've learned a lot about breastfeeding.

* You don't need the expensive Medela Pump & Save bags that are $20 for 50. After going through a box every week and a half I switched to the much more reasonable $10/50 Lansinoh bags.

* When you find a nursing bra that actually fits and doesn't ride up or sag or twist around on you (good luck), buy several of them.

* You only need lanolin for about the first month or so. One tube should be MORE than enough.

* Reusable breast pads are awesome, but at night it's a better idea to use disposables (or stack up 2 or 3 reusables per side) so you don't wake up in a puddle.

* It's really hard to breastfeed without a Boppy. I just ordered an inflatable nursing pillow.

* This breastmilk diet is clearly working because Lily is 14 weeks old and about to start crawling and already teething. Also, she's in the 95th percentile in size.

Right now I have a sty roughly the size of the state of Alabama on my lower eyelid. I can't open my eye all the way and it looks and feels like I've been punched in the face. They say that breastmilk can cure pinkeye and ear infections so I did what any reasonable sleep-deprived and stressed-out mother would do. I put breastmilk on my sty. We'll see what happens. Right now I'd rub poison ivy on my nether regions if it would make this thing go away.

Foodie Tuesday: Barrio for lunch

Husband had the day off yesterday so he met me downtown for lunch. We popped in to Mission to check out the menu and see if it was even remotely in our price range. It wasn't. So off we went to the beautiful and exciting Nicollet Mall. We decided on Barrio because we've been curious about it for a while now but don't have the time or inclination to check it out in the dinner/evening hours. I'm never a fan of places so small and packed that you are forced to eat with someone else's armpit/ass/elbow in your face. It was only moderately busy during the lunch hour so we grabbed some seats by the open window in front.

Barrio is stuffed into a narrow space next to The Local. It has a bar with a wall of tequila on the left and an upstairs seating area in the back. The décor is dark, red, and going for an urban Latino thing.

The service was really excellent. The couldn't have been nicer. The staff all seemed happy and that always makes a world of difference in service and atmosphere. Husband and I both had the $10 lunch special, which includes chips, guacamole, salsa, and two tacos. The guacamole is handmade and left chunky. I couldn't place the flavor that it had but it was delicious, whatever it was. It was served in a big molcajete and topped with chopped tomatoes and sliced radish. The chips are thick and crunchy -- almost like pita chips -- and not at all greasy like some thicker chips can be. They give you three salsas -- verde, ancho, and habanero. The ancho chile salsa was sweet and mild. I didn't even attempt the habanero because I'm kind of a weenie about spicy stuff. My favorite by far was the verde because it was full of cilantro. The tacos that day were steak, onion, and chile. The tortillas were the traditional corn type. The steak was tender, juicy, and flavorful. Not at all what I expected on a Monday lunch shift.

The consensus was that we liked the food but the tacos were small. But that's about what you can expect from a downtown joint. $10 doesn't get you very far unless you're eating fast food.

Husband got to see Nicollet Mall at its finest: the trumpet guy in the alley, dueling guitar players, geriatric Lion's Club members milling about, and a drunk who had fallen over with his head in the street. Thankfully a nice man helped him at least get out of the path of oncoming buses. Downtown Minneapolis. Gotta love it.

Ummm....

shop.sanrio.com - My Melody 3-Piece Gauze Mask Set

Mama Thursday: Three Months?

Three months? Seriously? Lily has outgrown both her newborn clothes and the 0-3 size. Unbelievable.

People at work keep asking me how I feel about being back, even though I've been back for a month now. I always have the same answer: meh. I don't believe I'm cut out for stay-at-home motherhood. By the end of those 10 weeks of maternity leave I was getting a little batty. I was an emotional mess and was starting to take it out on Husband. A lot of women say it's the lack of adult conversation that makes them crazy. For me it was being unable to do anything around the house and having it stare me in the face all day. Lily's not one for taking regular lengthy naps. I watched piles of pet hair collect in the corners, non-diaper laundry pile up on the bathroom floor, dishes sit in the sink, papers pile up on the table, and I don't even want to mention the bathroom.

After a couple of meltdowns and heart-to-hearts with Husband, he has really stepped up his housework game. Now we've almost got this complex dance of baby duty and chores down.

I have to build up my work wardrobe again because I found out the hard way that I can no longer wear button-up shirts. As a co-worker said, my rack is huge.

Lately Lily has taken to needing some cuddling time first thing in the morning. She is forcing me to slow down and really enjoy her.

Trying something new

I've been feeling guilty about neglecting this blog so I'm going to try something new. I'm giving myself deadlines and weekly topics. I'm going to start out with Foodie Tuesday and Mama Thursday. We'll see how this goes. When you only have three waking hours after work with your baby that doesn't leave a whole lot of time to blog.