Blame Scott

I wasn’t going to take any more pictures of Mackenzie sleeping, I swear.

But here’s what happened:

First, Mackenzie had a GREAT night last night. She went 6 1/2 hours between feedings, then 4 1/2 hours, then I woke her up because, um, I had a pressing need to nurse I was pretty sure she was hungry.

Then, she had a terrible day for naps.

So, in an effort to inspire her to take a good nap, I dressed her in her darling “Sleepy Head” pajamas.

It worked and she was so cute sleeping in them that Scott whipped out the camera.

And THEN, I woke up from MY nap and took the blanket off Mackenzie to wake her up for a feeding. Well, look how cute she was! Of course I had to take 40 more photos.

Why so many photos, you ask? Well see, she’d move slightly and it would be cute… and then she’d move a bit more and it would be even cuter. Yeah, we’re first-time parents. Any other questions?

Oh, and lest you think from all the photos that our little angel only sleeps all day… let me assure you that she woke herself up from her next nap by pooping loudly. Pooping enough that she blew out her diaper, soaked her cute pajama pants and her blanket. Luckily, we have the “poo soak” down to an art form and the oxiclean leaves everything good as new!

Turning 1 month old, and other accomplishments

Mackenzie is one month old today. Woop!

Here are some things she is good at:

1) Keeping her parents on their toes.

- She learning new tricks every day. One of her favorite things to do is test her vocal chords by making a wide variety of random sounds. So, she’ll just be quiet and content and then we’ll hear a loud exclamation coming from her direction. Invariably, she’ll look just as surprised as we do!

- Also, she now has a rash (hives) that has us scratching our heads. Is it because of the dryer sheets? Perhaps. She doesn’t seem to mind, but just seeing those red bumps makes ME itchy.

2) Peeing on scales. Now ordinarily, I wouldn’t list this as an accomplishment, but this girl has been weighed four times now and has flooded the scale four times. That’s a 100% track record and it’s nothing to sneeze at. Her next appointment is in four weeks and we’ll see if she can keep up the streak.

3) Waking her daddy up with a smile.

Curried Potatoes with Spinach *Updated*

One of my favorite things about really good recipes is that they introduce me to foods I might not normally eat. I’ve blogged previously about brussel sprout pasta and what a miracle it is that it made brussel sprouts a part of my diet. This recipe falls under the same category.

I HATE(ed) cooked green leafy veggies. I taught myself to like fresh spinach in the last several years, so I would just eat my leafy greens in the form of a salad and avoid all recipes that involved cooked greens. But, I decided to be brave this last week and I was not disappointed. This recipe is yummy and even yummier as leftovers and it does NOT taste like cooked greens. Even though I doubled the amount of spinach the recipe called for. Go me!

The recipe originally came from this cookbook, but I modified it so much I don’t mind posting my version here.

1 scant TBS canola oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced (or 2 small red onions)
1 large rib celery, sliced
2 tsp minced fresh ginger root (if you have it, I didn’t)
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes (can use fresh)
1 TBS curry powder (we use the hot curry powder from our favorite spice shop)
1 tsp garam masala (can use ground coriander in a pinch)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne
4 cups water
3+ cups diced red potatoes, skins on
2 medium carrots, diced
6+ cups coarsely chopped spinach (I probably used close to 8 )

Serve over 4 cups cooked brown rice, or even better… quinoa! I put some quinoa in my rice cooker with veggie broth with the same proportions as you’d make white rice (if you’d ever do such a thing ). Yum.

In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion, celery, and ginger and cook for about 4 minutes. Add tomato, curry powder, garam masala, salt and cayenne and cook for 3 minutes over low heat.

Add water, potatoes and carrots and cook for 15 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Stir in spinach and cook until the potatoes are tender, 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and let stand for about 5 minutes.

Serve by ladling over brown rice or quinoa.

UPDATED TO ADD: Celery to the list of ingredients. Yikes! How could I forget the celery!

Learning a lesson

I started working again this week (for SmugMug) and I’ve really been enjoying it. I’ve been squeezing in time while Mackenzie’s napping or just entertaining herself and it’s very rewarding to be able to contribute to our family’s income (well, currently I AM the income ) while doing something I love.

However.

I’ve found that taking care of the house, keeping good food on the table, feeding Mackenzie every 3 hours (for about an hour), bathing Mackenzie, cuddling Mackenzie, etc. etc. AND working… well, it keeps me pretty busy! Scott has his “boards” in four months, and a heavy class workload on top of that so I’m really trying to take care of everything else so he can focus on studying.

Last night, Scott was off at the library, studying, and I made dinner, while working and jiggling Mackenzie, during The Witching Hour. (Yes, my life is full of commas these days. ) Dinner was split pea soup and when Scott walked in the door it smelled delicious. Mackenzie was content, and I was feeling on top of things.

Approximately three minutes later, Mackenzie started fussing and I smelled something burning. Somehow I had left the soup to “simmer” for an hour on MEDIUM heat instead of LOW heat and it was burnt. Badly burnt. Burnt beyond hope of being edible and it left a nasty pot to clean as well. I just started crying, right there in the kitchen with my poor burnt soup and fussy baby and poor husband who would have to forage for his own dinner (something he didn’t mind doing in the least). Scott wiped away my tears and whipped together a yummy spinach salad with red pears while I fed the baby.

For my part, I got back in the saddle and currently have a double-batch of split pea soup* simmering on LOW right now. There’s laundry in the washer and I just finished folding a batch. I have already squeezed some work in today (though not enough) and Mackenzie is clean and content. I was sitting here feeling “on top of things” again and had to do a reality-check. I’m amazed how quickly I fell back into the trap of “I can (and must) do it all”. When I feel that way, something like burnt soup can be the end of the world because my perspective is out of whack.

I laughed out loud when I stumbled across this just now, written by a mother of six.

“The answer to, “How do you do it all?” is simple. Nobody does it all. If you bake your own bread and mill your own wheat, then you probably don’t polish your silverware. If you polish your silverware, you probably don’t parse Latin verbs with your kids. If you do Latin with your kids, you probably don’t have a garden. If you have a garden and do all of the above…you probably don’t take a shower. And I’ll bet your garden has weeds.”

Point taken.