No Gender Disappointment Here

People always ask when you first get pregnant "Do you want a boy or a girl?" Its like they are asking if you like cats or dogs. Before we got pregnant with our first child my husband wanted a boy. The conversation came up with some friends at a dinner party and I asked him why. "So, I can play catch with him and things like that." I have been an athlete most of my life, playing soccer and basketball all through high school and running cross country and track through college. So, I took this comment as somewhat of a slap in the face. One of my long time friends seemed to be reading my mind. "You think a daughter of Liesl's is going to have any problem catching and throwing?" she asked him. "It's just always what I envisioned in my head." he answered.

A few months later we were pregnant. We decided not to find out the sex and for it to be a surprise. For me it was because I didn't want my husband to find out we were having a girl and be disappointed for the next 20 weeks. I knew once he was holding that baby he would be in love no matter what it was, that's just how he is. So for 34 weeks I listened to my mother in law tell everyone how she just knew it was going to be a boy. People at work tell me how they thought it was a boy too. This actually started to make me very upset (hormones did not help anything). I told my dad how everyone thought it was a boy and what was so wrong with a girl! "Well, I think its a girl, but then I thought your brother was going to be a girl too." he said. I laughed and this somehow put me at ease. Whatever it was it simply didn't matter. 

January 2012 our little girl was born. Just as I expected my husband didn't even care that it was a girl. He was so excited to be a dad. She is now two and puts on her Seahawk shirt and grabs her football every Sunday and watches football with her dad and papa. 

When we got pregnant with our second my mother in law started in with the "this one is going to be a boy." My husband was a whole different guy this time around "I don't care either way but I sort of hope its another girl so Lyra can have a sister. Also, we won't have to buy more clothes!" I decided to find out the sex at 20 weeks this time just so people would just stop telling me what they thought. I wasn't worried about the sex at all with this one after I saw how the whole family had feel in love with Lyra.

We now have two beautiful daughters and people still ask us "Are you going to try for a boy?" And our answer "Nope." We have decided our two girls is all we need to feel complete and content with our family and my husband went ahead with a vasectomy last week. "I thought we were going to get a boy" my grandmother said when she found out. "Sorry, talk to my brother about that one." I answered.      

Lyra, Etta and Daddy watching the Superbowl

Going Plastic Free for Safety!

In light of new studies going BPA free just isn't enough anymore. Mother Jones just released an article uncovering that many replacements for plastic containing BPA are more toxic than the plastics they are replacing. Instead of sifting through all the different plastic formulas to figure out what is currently considered safe we are getting rid of plastic all together. Before you write me off for being completely crazy I will just say I know too may people under the age of thirty to battle cancer not to be concerned. The task of eliminating plastic is easier said then done in today's world. There are many non plastic options out there, however they can be pricey.

Baby bottles are the easiest. Most all bottle manufactures carry a glass product line. You may have to get on Amazon.com to find them but they can be found in almost any brand for a very reasonable price. However, the nipples and lids are still made of plastic. Luckily the liquid is spending its time sitting in the glass portion of the bottle and to limit the leaching of plastic chemicals hand wash in warm water and soap and never expose plastic to high heat.

Same rule for sippy cups. However, non plastic sippy cups are harder to find and usually are pricey. Stainless steal and glass are the most common replacements. For my toddler I chose stainless steal for all the dropping and knocking over it is going to have to take. I purchased a Safe Sippy 2 and my toddler adores that cup! I highly recommend purchasing an extra parts kit too! I have heard good things from folks that have taken the glass route. A popular glass option for baby bottles and sippy cups is LifeFactory.

Lyra with her stylish Safe Sippy 2

For utensils there is always the good old fashion stainless steal which never really ever goes out of style. Stainless steal toddler utensils can be found anywhere and cheaply at your nearest Target or Ikea. If you are just introducing food for the first time you may want to use something softer that the baby can gum on while learning to eat like bamboo. Bambu makes a bamboo organic baby spoon. The down side of bamboo is that you don't want to put it in the dishwasher. I have seen corn starch baby spoons and plates on the market as well, however unless they are made from organic corn I would avoid them. Non organic corn is grown with very high levels of pesticides, atrazine in particular. Atrazine is a known carcinogenic.

While your child is in the throw the whole bowl on the floor stage it is good to have some non breakable plates and bowls. For this there is bamboo, stainless, potato starch, glass with silicon and much more! A simple google and amazon search will blow your mind what's out there. We chose to go with bamboo wear from Green Sprout. These can be found through many local Co Ops and Amazon.com.

For food storage there are many glass tupperwares and cloth zipper snack bags out there. I purchased my glass tupperware at Costco and I love it. For baby food I turn to a good old reliable mason jar. There are many options out there. Happy hunting!

Orange and Ginger Sauce (vegan)

Tonight my husband took a recipe from "Joy of Cooking" full of dairy and vinegar and put his own twist on it. It was so tasty I decided it was blog worthy. This sauce can be used in any stir fry of veggies with meat or tofu. Tonight he made a fried brown rice with asparagus with sliced chicken breast which he poured this sauce on. The ginger is not over powering making this a kid friendly dish, our toddler loved it.

Orange and Ginger Sauce

1 tbs Earth Balance
3/4 cup chopped mushrooms
1/4 cup shallots/onions
1 cup apple juice
2 tbs chopped ginger
3 cups vegetable stock (or chicken)
3/4 cup fresh orange juice
3/4 cup coconut cream (can find at Trader Joes)
1 tbs orange zest
Lemon juice to taste
salt/pepper to taste

Saute earth balance, mushrooms and onions until brown. Then add apple juice and ginger and cook until reduced by half. Add vegetable stock and orange juice and cook until reduced by half. Add coconut cream and cook until it coats the spoon. Strain sauce into bowl and add orange zest, lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Stores in the fridge up to 7 days and can be frozen for longer storage.

My Kid is Happy, Healthy and Skinny

My oldest daughter was born tall and thin into the eighth percentile for weight and 78th percentile for height and by the time she was six months old she was in the zero percentile for weight and 86th percentile for height. The doctors assumed I was not producing enough breast milk. I could easily pump out eight oz in a sitting with a nice layer of fat in it and she was not fussy, tired or sickly. She was hitting all her development milestones and bubbly. This aside our doctor was very worried about that number on the scale and started us on a high fat diet mixing coconut oil, olive oil and formula into everything she ate. Still she remained in the zero percentile for weight and the 84th percentile for height. By the time she was ten months old the doctor ordered a huge round of blood tests which all came back perfect and normal. After that our doctor backed off for awhile as she moved into the fourth percentile for weight and held that until she turn two.

When children turn two they put them onto a different percentile chart. Factoring in her height this chart showed she was very underweight, again. They offered to refer us to a dietitian that would most likely prescribe a feeding tube. At this point my husband just about lost it. "She ate half a chicken last night and was running laps around the other kids at the park!" he yelled. My husband has some food allergies that affect the way he digests food so we decided to take her into for a food allergy panel even though she has never really showed any discomfort. This was an absolute fiasco! She screamed through the entire appointment and testing. Thank goodness my parents were there to help. Guess what they found? NOTHING! She can eat anything and everything and she does!

The problem with using a percentile chart to measure a child's health is it is comparing my child to other American children. The last time I checked America was having an obesity epidemic and most children are way too big. My child is not undernourished, she is in perfect health. Our society is obsessed with charts and test scores. Everyone wants their kid at the top of the chart, but is that a good thing? Maybe being at the low end of the weight chart is actually a good thing. So, I am declaring no more tests unless she is sick. My kid is happy healthy and skinny!

Pretty in Pink?

You know the drill, if its a boy everything blue and if its a girl everything pink, of course. Despite my best efforts to keep the girls clothing somewhat gender neutral in color, that annoying pink keeps flooding in the door. You know the pink I am talking about, similar to that of pepto bismol. As soon as they are born they get a pink hat and blanket, and heaven forbid someone ask if your little bald baby is a boy! People are always so quick to apologize when they realize they just called my three month old a "he." I always laugh and say "That's okay she doesn't know she's a girl yet either." And that's true! That little bundle of joy doesn't have a clue and they don't care either. As long as she has a dry diaper and steady supply of milk she could care less. My oldest daughter just turned two and this is when it starts to get interesting.

Toddlers are just learning to make decisions and are constantly pushing the boundaries. From the get go society is pushing girls into a pink world of ponies and princesses. In fact most parents are the driving force behind it. Just tonight I watched my husband grab a new purple sippy cup with hearts on it at the grocery store. I stopped him and asked him if Lyra had pick out purple one. "No, but its the only girl one they have." I held the purple cup up along side a green one with robots and bicycles on it. Lyra instantly grabbed the green one. "But I like the purple one!" my husband said to persuade her. "Its not your cup" I stopped him. We have our entire lives to be slapped around by the norms of society no need to start on our toddler right now.

For the most part I let my daughter choose what she wants to wear each day. I often have to take a shirt away explaining that she can't wear the same shirt everyday because sometimes you have to wash your lunch out of your shirt. I love seeing what she will come up with next. Children have amazing minds. So amazing they can see that a cardboard box has 10 times more wonder than any plastic toy. When it comes to gender norms folks just need to relax. Your little girl will not be damaged by wearing a blue rocket ship shirt or your boy playing with a pink princess doll. In my opinion every girl and boy should have a doll and a truck not one or the other. Enjoy watching them explore this crazy world we live in.  

One of Lyra's favorite outfits

Lyra's 2nd Birthday Party

Lyra's second birthday was last weekend, but due to a couple of our dearest friend's wedding the birthday party was pushed back to this weekend. I am proud to say we learned a few things since her first birthday.

First, our house is too small to hold parties that include friends and family. So, we held the part at Milagros Boutique in their Family Room. This turned out be the perfect size for our party. It will hold up to 40 people comfortably and cost $60 for a three hour block. For $30 more dollars they will do all the clean up for you or you can save the money and do it yourself. The room has a little play castle with a few books and toys perfect for little kids to play in. There are also fold out tables along one wall perfect for food and drinks and chairs and fold out tables for eating at.

Lyra enjoying a carrot

Second, cakes are much less work than cup cakes! Last year I made cupcakes and it was very labor intensive. This year I made two cakes. The first cake was a gluten and dairy free chocolate cake with a vegan coconut frosting.  I used Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Chocolate Cake Mix with coconut milk in place of cow's milk and earth balance in place of butter. This cake can also be made vegan by using egg replacer instead of eggs (this I forgot to do). The second cake was a chocolate beet cake with a cream cheese frosting. Before you get all weird about beets in a cake I will tell you that my husband hates beets, but loves chocolate beet cake. Beets are naturally sweet and when mixed in a chocolate cake they lose their earthy flavor and add the perfect amount of moisture. They also make a beautiful pink colored frosting! Lyra loves chocolate beet muffins, so I knew she would love the cake. 

Testing the frosting while everyone is singing

Thirdly, with a new baby at home order decorations online. Lyra loves Winnie the Pooh so we had a theme. If I only had a dollar for every time I had to watch that movie! I purchased everything I needed from Oriental Trading and Amazon. Lyra loved the Pooh party hats and made sure that everyone had one on. Including her baby sister.

Baby Etta and her Great Aunt Sherrye

It was a very fun event with friends and family. Lyra took a three hour nap to recover from all the fun. She received some wonderful gifts and now has enough dolls to distract her from "helping" with her baby sister, at least for a little while. Its hard to believe its been two whole years already. It seems just yesterday I was holding a 6 1/2 lbs little baby.

Toddler Whining!

The age of whining! They have learned enough words to ask for what they want, but still find they need to cry or whine to get it. My eldest daughter turns 2 in a week and has recently taken to crying and whining for everything, especially when I am nursing her three month old sister. The two year old is crying three times as much as the infant! Solution? Ignore it. It can make for a very long day, but the only way to break the habit is not to reward the behavior.

For example, she is allowed one book before nap time. She started whining and crying for another one and I refused and after about three days of whining she gave up and accepted the fact that she would only get one book. The thing about toddlers is they will keep trying elsewhere. If she wants crackers she whines for them. I tell her she has to say "please" and ask for them. This usually results in screaming. If I give her the crackers the whining stops, which I have done out of desperation while I try to change and nurse the infant. However, this means she will do it again and again. I must put my foot down and not let her have what she wants or it will never stop.

She has been particularly whiny this week with me and not her father. Seeing this makes me feel less guilty about not giving in, knowing that she is playing me, as toddlers will do. Three days seems to be the magic number with a toddler. I know there are parents out there dealing with the same thing and all I can say is hang in there and stick to your guns!