Let's play the numbers game

350

Amount of money I spent the summer I was pregnant on ice cream alone. Yep, that doesn’t even count the free scoops I got or the free sundaes I received on my birthday. I celebrated my birthday six times that summer. And I really have the nerve to wonder about my “mysterious” weight gain.

15

The times I go in to check on the baby to make sure he’s breathing after I’ve put him to sleep. Then there is the few times I check on him before I go to sleep. And that doesn’t count the four more times during the night I rush into his room to make sure he didn’t go anywhere. And to double check to make sure he is breathing.

22

The number of times my husband goes in to check on the baby because he doesn’t trust my checking in on the baby. Why is that you ask? Well it is because I don’t poke and prod him to make him move to make sure he is breathing. I just put my head realllllly close to his face. Like that’s not annoying and I would bitch slap anyone that did that to me. I swear one day my kid will punch me in the face for doing that to him. I am waiting for it.

9

I hear phantom crying and rush to my baby’s side to see what’s up. He is fine. I am just a wee bit crazy and I hear things that I don’t even hear in real life. I am blaming it on the “hormones.” I don’t care if my kid is one years old and I really cant use that excuse anymore. I am sticking to my story.

57

the number of “extremely urgent” text messages I send my husband throughout the day. If he doesn’t answer within a few minutes I send off a few rapid fire emails and call him about 12 times or until he answers the phone. No meeting is more important than the well being of his child!!! That being said, I need a new emergency contact number because he doesn’t appreciate the calls about my baby’s poop color. Or care what he ate for lunch and how much he ate. It's the little details that matter hubby. I know you really deep down do care.

11

Diaper duty calls. Roughly the amount of diapers my kid goes through on a daily basis. It’s a dirty job and I prefer not to do it. I have been peed on, pooped on, farted on and peed on some more. He holds it in while waiting for me to undo the diaper, and then laughs while grabbing any part of himself that he can taking the mess to a whole different level. I've taken to wearing long armed rubber heavy duty gloves because the more he eats the worse the diapers become. Why don't changing tables come equipped with a hose?

6

that’s how many bottles I wash every day. Each bottle has a nipple, collar and a cap and I have to wash those too. With hot water and lots of soap. Simply just running the bottle and the parts under water doesn’t work and I really hate washing bottles. For some reason hubby is exempt from bottle washing and I am not quite sure how he swung that. I want to exempt myself from something. I am going to sleep on it and get back to him about it tomorrow, I want it to be a really good thing…

4

Outfit changes a day. Little kids grow so fast, why not change them often so you can enjoy those cute little outfits GMA bought before it is packed away in a giant clear box, stacked and labeled with the gender, size and season? Its getting harder to fight him into pants and button down shirts. But I am bigger, badder and stronger than you little baby so sit your tushy down and let me get your pants on!! So I will give you a fun toy, something to distract you for the 62 seconds I need to squish you into your clothes “look it’s mommy’s iphone!” But I probably should not have offered that because that’s not exactly something I want to go out and replace when he breaks it. I have no doubt that my phone will end up swirling down a flushed toilet one of these days. There are sweater vests and hats to be bought instead and of course desert boots, uggs and sperry’s. Because a toddler does need a fifty dollar pair of boots. Duh.

3, 768

number of photos I have taken of my baby on my phone. Because I will go through all 3,768 photos when compiling his wedding video montage and I need pictures from birth til one year old. Just in case. Im an advanced planner.

24

Ounces in my coffee cup, and no its not the first cup of the day. Maybe its my third? Good thing I moved to the Midwest where there is a drive thru dunkin donuts and a starbucks around the corner from my house and convientley en route to any place I may go. No point in drinking decaf, id rather suffer an excruciating caffeine migraine and be a total witch than drink non caffeinated coffee. What is the point then? It’s the legal mommy drug, how else do I function? Ok maybe I don’t want the excruciating migraine.

5

pounds my baby weighed at birth. That was according to the hospital scale.

40

pounds is what I consider my baby weighed at birth. That was the number increase on my scale. Of course my measurements are the accurate ones, I know my body best right? So why was the hospital scale so completely far off?? And the money they spend on medical devices and the taxes we pay. Shameful.

As I sit here counting, it is a cold blustery rainy day, the baby is asleep and the house is quiet. The smell of turkey roasting in the oven while the cranberry sauce waits in the fridge is enough to have me longing for winter. The days when the snow drifts up to the windows and you are warm and toasty inside with a mug of hot chocolate and little marshmallows. ( I bet I will want to eat those words in a few months.) I wait for my husband to get home from school and I know he will appreciate a nice home cooked dinner like this one. It is one of his favorites. Be sure to make the cranberry sauce a day ahead so it has time to chill in the fridge.

ROAST TURKEY WITH AUTUMN VEGETABLES AND CRANBERRY SAUCE

Ingredients:

One Split Turkey breast bone in(about 3 pounds)

1 large butternut squash, peeled, seeds scraped out and cubed

3 shallots, sliced

1 pound brussel sprouts, bottoms trimmed and cut in half

1 lemon

3 tbsp apricot jam

garlic powder

paprika

onion powder

salt and pepper

olive oil

Method:

· Preheat oven to 350

· In the bottom of a large roasting pan, place the cubed butternut squash, brussel sprouts and shallots. Toss with enough olive oil to coat lightly and season with salt and pepper. Squeeze the lemon over the vegetables, slice the lemon and add to the pan.

· Rinse well and pat dry the turkey.

· Place the turkey on top of the vegetables and season with salt and pepper.

· Drizzle some olive oil over the turkey and rub in, use your hands to do this, ensure the oil gets all over the skin.

· Rub the apricot jam over the turkey skin, and season with the garlic powder, onion powder and paprika. I like to “rain” the spices over the skin.

· Cover the pan tightly with heavy duty foil and place in the oven and bake for 45 minutes.

· After 45 minutes, remove from the oven and uncover.

· Place pan back in the oven for another 45 to an hour and continue to roast, when the time is up remove the pan from the oven and check for doneness by piercing the turkey with a small sharp knife. If the juices run clear then your turkey is done. The vegetables may need more time so remove the turkey from the pan and cook the vegetables longer.

· Allow the turkey to cool before slicing.

Fresh Cranberry Sauce

1 pound bag cranberries, fresh or frozen

1 cup orange juice

1 cup sugar

1 cinnamon stick

pinch of all spice

Method:

In a 3 qt saucepot, bring the orange juice, sugar, all spice and cinnamon stick to a boil. Add in the cranberries and bring back to a boil. Once the pot is boiling lower the flame to a simmer and simmer the berries for 15 minutes. Be careful because cranberries have known to explode and pop and boil over creating a sticky mess on your stove top!

Pour sauce into a pretty dish large enough to hold it and cool. Place a piece of plastic directly onto the surface of the sauce and refrigerate, this will allow to the sauce to further thicken and congeal. Best if made ahead and cooled overnight.

Breast-Feeding is best feeding???

I swore I would give it a try. I promised I would try for a month and see how it went, see if I could be a mother milk machine and breast-feed my baby. In Boston there was tremendous pressure put upon me by my doctors, midwife, nurses, baby classes and the well-meaning individuals id meet on the street. “ Do what is best for you but just remember that breastfeeding is best for your baby.” Again emphasis on “do what’s best for you.” Even my own mother who didn’t breastfeed her own children, was in on the whole scheme. She took one look at the can of formula and told me I am not feeding that to her grandson. Thanks ma, I think I turned out fine. My husband was always the one into it saying, “of course that’s what you do, you are going to breastfeed, it’s not really an option.” Of course if he had to breastfeed let us see how long he would last! Huh!!! Actually who am I kidding, if he could have been the pregnant one he would have been the best pregnant person ever and if he could take a pill to make him lactate he would have. He is so much better than me.

I can’t even say the words. Breastfeeding.breastfeeding.breastfeeding. It grosses me out. I am such a child. Ugh. Well anyways, since I swore up and down I would give it a go, I had seen friends nurse their babies (another incredibly gross word for me), it wasn’t totally unfamiliar, and I did some research on what to wear while nursing. (Ew). I was even more depressed with the selection of nursing clothes than I was with the selection of maternity clothes. You mean to tell me, that after 9 months wearing the clothing I hated, I get to spend another year wearing this stuff!!! I cried. I cried a lot. So nursing clothes were a no, I’ll just lift up my bra and I’ll be fine. I wasn’t fine. I wasn’t fine at all. My bras wouldn’t close, and I was busting out all over the place. I had no choice but to cave and buy some, I found the lesser of all the evils, nice long tank tops that covered my stomach and were kind of sort of looking like real shirts. I only had to unsnap with one hand and pull down the top. Sounds easy right? Ok so not only am I childish and immature because I cant say the word breastfeed; I am incompetent and need two hands to unsnap a one handed shirt. So what happens to the baby when you need to use two hands to unsnap your shirt? Good question! Yes, the baby was put down on the most unhygienic surfaces imaginable. The really gross mommy room in babies r us which was a personal favorite of mine, a park bench where a homeless man may or may not have slept or peed, the floor at borders books where plenty of boots and shoes and other no good dirty things track on the floor. Thank god he didn’t catch any scary diseases but I’m sorry baby, mommy can’t manage her shirt.

I did mange to score myself a free Medela “pump in style”, what is stylish about a pump system I do not know, but I scored in not having to pay 300 bucks for such a thing. I claimed to have latching problems, which is a real thing, and since “breast is best” the nice doctors and nurses at the hospital made sure I got my pump so I could supply my tiny 5 pounder with some fresh expressed mothers milk. Going to be away from your baby for a while? Not to worry! The folks at Medela invented some sandwich baggies, I’m sorry, milk baggies, that you directly pump into and zip and store in your freezer until ready for use. Now like I said, the words breastfeeding and nursing totally gross me out but seeing those pumped milk bags stacked in the freezer totally grossed my husband out. Isn’t it great baby? You have two parents who are complete children responsible for raising you and providing you with pearls of wisdom along the way. Just like the one handed tank tops were a simple thing to use, so too these milk baggies were simple. Just attach the pump parts with the special tape that the baggie provided and start pumping. Only in my case, I started pumping…. directly into my lap. So there I am, soaking wet, attached to a pump and watching my free afternoon spent at the mall soak through my couch cushions. I spent the better part of ten months feeling like a cow, putting my kid down in gross places waiting for the light at the end of the breastfeeding tunnel. I didn’t think id last as long as I did but I figured id stick it out and take one for the team and do it until my kid was at least a one years old. But he is a smart one; probably from the copious amounts of coffee and wine I consumed while breastfeeding, and took pity on me. He weaned himself by ten months old and was more than happy to take a bottle. But the real honest to god reason why I really breastfed? Breastfeeding is free and I wanted to buy shoes.

Now what goes best with a nice warm delicious glass (or bottle) of warm milk?? Why the iconic American classic, the chocolate chip cookie! I like to mix a batch of dough and freeze it before baking, I find the cold chunks of cookie dough spread less than when scooped and baked right away but that’s your call.

Ingredients:

· 3 cups all purpose flour

· 1 tsp. baking soda

· 1 ½ tsp. kosher salt

· 2 sticks unsalted butter or margarine, softened

· 1 cup sugar

· 1 cup dark brown sugar

· 2 extra large eggs

· 2 tbsp. vanilla extract

· 12 oz. chopped semi sweet chocolate chunks

Method:

· In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt. Set aside.

· In the bowl of a standing mixer, beat the butter or margarine with the sugars until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

· Add in the eggs one and a time and then add in the vanilla. Mix until blended. The batter will look curdled but once you add the flour it’ll be perfectly cookie dough like.

· While the mixer is on low speed, add in the flour mixture and blend just until combined. It’s ok to see streaks of flour.

· Fold the chocolate chunks in the batter, make sure you see no flour streaks but don’t over mix here and scrape the whole thing into a gallon size freezer bag.

· Press the dough all around the bag so it fills it out nicely and you have perfectly square cookie dough.

· Pop the whole thing into the freezer and forget about it for a few days. My husband swears this is what makes the cookies so good; all the ingredients get a chance to mellow and hang out with each other. He calls it the “caramelization process”. J I love you sweetheart never change!

· Preheat your oven to 325 and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper or silpats.

· Take your frozen “caramelized” dough out from the freezer and using a large knife cut the dough into 1 and ½ inch pieces, roughly.

· Space them about 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet and bake cookies until pale brown about 12-15 depending on your oven. I prefer to under bake them so I bake them just until the tops have puffed and set and are no longer wet looking.

· Let the cookies cool for 10 minutes to set on the pans and then transfer to a wire cooling rack to finish cooling. Feel free to sample some en route to the cooling rack.

· Store the cookies in an airtight container or freeze for later use.

· Cookies are also amazing eaten frozen right from the freezer as most cookies are…

Out of the mouths of babes

Every night before I go to sleep I clean up my kids playroom. I am of course only doing this until he is old enough to do it himself, say around two years old? I put all the small little doodads and cars and blocks into these cute animal bins and I line all the big toys up nicely in a row. I then collect all the Sippy cups and wads of paper, (I still cant figure out where he finds the paper), pieces of food that he squirrels away in his shorts and stray articles of clothing. I even bought a small cubicle storage shelf to put all the midsize toys. That will stay in there so long as he doesn’t try to scale the sides. I give it a week; my paper towels need a home so no love lost there. Playroom nice and neat, just the way I like it. But I wonder, what do you think goes on in his head when he sees his playroom the next morning? I bet it goes something along the lines of this:

“What the f*** MA! Where did my blocks go? Why is the car in that corner and where the hell is my snack that I left here? Where’s my paper collection? I was planning on doing something with it. Something soon, I’m not sure what but heyyyy waaa!!!!, and no I do not want those stupid click toys. Out you go!” Oh but look at the light switch! I want to touch that, I want to flick it on and off 67 times and then I want to, oh look, a tiny piece of lint on the floor, I need to put that in my mouth!!! But where’s my milk? Hurry it up MA!! Ill wait here…. dadadadadadadadadadadaaaa.”

Then comes breakfast, what the world considers THE most important meal of the day. I still think a 24oz cup of coffee suffices. I’m just fine aren’t I? But all the best for my kid, I like to think a warm bowl of oatmeal with Greek yogurt and some ripe banana chunks is a nice way for a baby to start the day. I mean I wouldn’t eat that if I were him, he would probably prefer waffles or a bagel and cream cheese but isn’t motherhood all about do as I say and not what I do? Love it. So breakfast, you have your carbs, your protein and your “dessert like” treat. But no. The kid has other ideas. First he may think

“ Oh not this shit oatmeal again. But I will use it to exfoliate my face, it makes my skin soft, its gooey and pasty and I can sqquueeeezzze it through my fingers.” Next the yogurt gets shmeared all over the tray…”this white stuff? Better off as finger paint and plugging up my ear holes. Ahhhhh its cold! MA! I don’t like this! Help me please!!! Last but not least the banana chunks get chucked to the floor one by one very methodically. “One banana chunk for this side of the chair, one banana chunk for the other side…can I reach the fridge if I throw hard enough? oh, whats that paper thing hanging there, i need to touch and taste that... Ew EW EW EW I don’t like these. I want green food like avocado, why can’t I see any green food? I need to talk. Really I need too. It would help me out a lot here. I would get waffles and avocado…hey look it’s the ipad! Show me Elmo! ELMO! ELLMMOOOO!

So I end up feeding him bits of my waffle and tossing the oatmeal, sweeping up banana and cleaning off the tray from the yogurt. Some breakfast made into his mouth but that’s because I am doing the most god-awful thing a mother can do. I turn my IPAD on to a sesame street episode and while his mouth is hanging open in a sesame street, TV, brain rotting Elmo daze I shovel in the very healthy breakfast I so lovingly prepared. Maybe I should just offer him the waffles to begin with.

After naptime we go outside. I enjoy being outside so I trained my son to love his stroller from the time he was a newborn. Works amazing because I go a little stir crazy spending too much time at home. When it rains, forget about it. I’m a nut case. I pack the diaper bag I pack his snacks (and my snacks, I have such a fondness for cheese crackers these days.) I plop him in the stroller and out we go. I see the little wheels in his head turning…

“Yea! Park time! YEA! I love the squirrels and the woodchips and the climbing toys and the trees and leaves and the big kids that play in that cool looking dirt pile but mommy says I’m not allowed in there because I eat dirt. She is kind of right. I really love eating dirt and i like eating feathers and lint. Lint is weird, it makes my nose tickle… I wonder if mommy will let me try that new tunnel toy today it looks awesome and I’m so so excited I think I peed a little, yep I did pee...I will let mommy know in a minute…wait a second…. WHAT THE HELL ARE WE DOING AT CVS???

So since I keep buying yogurt in the hope that my kid will wake up on day and go mmmm yogurt, I started using it a lot in my baking and cooking. So here’s a muffin recipe I deem healthy because it has fruit and yogurt so I don’t feel guilty about feeding it to my kid.

Blueberry Yogurt Muffins

1 stick unsalted butter, melted

½ cup plain whole milk yogurt

2 extra large eggs

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

¾ cup sugar, heaping

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

½ tsp. cinnamon

1 pint fresh blueberries picked over for stems and bruised berries

Method:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Line muffin pans with paper liners and spray the inside of the liners with pam.

Melt butter in a microwave safe bowl in short burst so it doesn’t explode. Nothing ruins the fun of baking like cleaning up a butter mess in the microwave.

into the bowl with the melted butter, whisk in the yogurt, eggs and vanilla until combined well.

In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt

Add the butter mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until just barely combined. You should have lumps and streaks of flour.

Fold in blueberries gently and by doing so you will mix in the flour a bit more, don’t over mix. Lumps and muffins love each other.

Divide batter among 12 muffin cups, using an ice cream scoop to portion evenly.

Bake 18-20 minutes, a toothpick inserted into the center should be clean with a few moist crumbs and the tops should be a light golden brown.

Cool in pans on a rack 15 minutes, then remove muffins to a wire cooling rack to cool

Serve warm or at room temperature.

These muffins also freeze very well so bake a bunch when you’ve got those tubs of yogurt needing someplace else to go besides the trash can!