You are how you feed

Cathryn brought me Skyline Chili when she returned from her Dayton visit. I guess it was my consolation prize for holding down the fort while she was away. It was nice of her and I was happy to eat it. I could go into the details of Skyline Chili, about its regional greatness, the fact that you can have it in five different “ways,” etc., but in the end it is just food. I eats it, I poops it. It just isn’t that exciting. Don’t misunderstand, I like good tasting food and Cathryn is an excellent cook, but I never think or care about food until I am hungry--If you ask me how my vacation was, I won’t tell you about the food I ate; I don’t understand the word “epicurean”; And food commercials have virtually no affect on me (unless it is the deeply provocative “Mini Sirloin Burgers” ad campaign: Herdin’ cows the size of schnauzers? But they're cattle? Incredbile!).

I don’t mean to say that I haven’t been influenced by the well-known phrase: “You are what you eat.” For example, to prove I am an Ohioan, I eat Skyline Chili. To prove that I am unique, special, or novel, I eat novelty foods like Deep Fried (insert dumb food) and Turducken. Eating something to become something extends back to my childhood when my mom made the following argument at dinner: Ninjas eat rice. Q.E.D. I should eat rice. In fact, I am still trying to figure out what food I would have to eat to prove to the world that I am a refined intellectual with + 25 charisma. Whatever it is, I’m sure it can only be found in a farmer’s market and is described by the words “open raised,” “wild sea bass,” “heirloom,” “organic,” or “whole.” But in the end, eating a Skyline Mini Sirloin Deep Fried Heirloom Turducken is equivalent to eating a ham and cheese sandwich: open mouth, insert food, chew, swallow. Because of my views on food, I have always been more concerned with the lesser known phrase: “You are how you eat.”

When I was a freshman at BYU, I became very interested in survival bars that had all the calories you needed in a day. I thought I could eat one of those bars in the morning and forget about eating for the rest of the day. My dream evolved into intravenous nourishment. To date, the most progress I have made toward my dream has been the smoothie. Every morning I drink a spinach, blueberry, banana, yogurt, and orange juice smoothie. I no longer have to chew and I have reduced my food delivery system from four tools (fork, spoon, peel, and cup) to one tool (cup.) This pleases me. But now that I am a parent, I am becoming even more concerned about the even lesser known phrase: “You are how you feed.”

I have noticed that while feeding Willa, I involuntarily open my mouth and curl my lips back as I present her a spoonful of mush. Lest you think that this is a Babkin Palmomental Reflex resulting from some unresolved frustration I had as a child, consider the fact that Cathryn also does this. I don’t think she notices it and I haven’t pointed it out yet because it is so shocking. I love my wife. I think she is beautiful. But when she feeds Willa, an inner monster surfaces and she curls her lips back and bares her teeth like Mr. Hyde. I considered taking a picture but such things are better left unrecorded.

Now that I know I involuntarily bare my teeth to Willa, I make an extra effort to relax my mouth and maintain my natural and neutral mien. I am not so worried about frightening Willa as I am about coddling Willa’s social intelligence development. I define social intelligence as the ability to accurately discern the hopes/thoughts/feelings/etc. of others through social interaction. In helping Willa develop her social intelligence, I try to measure out the exact amount of emotion warranted for the situation and then subtract 10 emotional units. Because she will have to pay closer attention to facial cues, she will be more skilled at reading people’s faces. It is kind of like teaching your kid to read a book by subtracting 10 words from every paragraph. Not only will Willa be a great book reader, but she will be a great face reader!  Thus, when I feed Willa, I have to suppress Mr. Hyde so that Willa can learn to discern his presence without any facial evidence. It’s like I always say, “Give a Willa emotion while feeding, and you stunt her growth for days. Teach a Willa no emotion while feeding, and you prepare her for life.”

9 Months Old

Today is the important nine month birthday mark!  Willa has now been outside for as long as she was inside!  Look at my little snugglebug with her zoot suit jammies and bedhead.  

Dressed for the day and cute as can be!

Enjoying some yummy oatmeal for brunch

Willa probably lucked out today because I went over to Carol's house to make cupcakes.  The change of scenery and two little toddlers to play with was heaven for her, she was a happy girl there!  DJ liked to show off for Willa and when she was eating applesauce he decided that he would have applesauce for lunch, too.  Her good humor at Carol's makes me think that maybe her increased whineyness at home is merely due to boredom. 

The past month has been huge for Willa.  A month ago she was hardly eating any solids; most days I wouldn't feed her any solids.  About three weeks ago milk suddenly wasn't enough and she became a solids machine.  I'm still trying to learn her new hunger cues because with the milk not quite satisfying her, our feeding schedule is all out of whack. 

Along with feeding out of whack, sleeping has been out of whack.  She's gone from sleeping 11+ hours to only sleeping 10 hours at night.  Not so bad, except that I liked to put her to bed at 7 pm, which makes for an early wake-up call!  I'm not sure if this is just the new her or if she is still adjusting to solids and needing more food.  The good thing is that she has the two naps down!

Willa has had a couple of firsts this month.  She has discovered her voice and likes saying dadada and shrieking a lot.  She really likes to do this during church and got mad last week when Ryan tried to cover her mouth to quiet her.

Willa had her first poop in the tub.  She looooves the tub, especially trying to drink the bathwater.  She screamed royally when she was rudely whisked out of the poop-infested waters before she could give them a sip.

She's just our super fun, super cute girl!  She gets more and more fun every day.  Her personality comes out and she can be quite persnickety if I take too long getting her food ready or if I don't come play with her soon enough.  She will cry if I set her down, but not if I leave and am out of sight.  Sometimes I have to hide out in the kitchen to eat my lunch in peace because once I walk out where she can see me she will start whining again.  I didn't know I was so popular!  It's mostly funny when she gets mad or annoyed, but sometimes it is maddening and annoying.  

Here are a few pictures from the past so that you can see how our Willa-girl has grown.

Newborn, 6lbs 7.5 oz and two weeks early:

One month:

Four months:

Eh, you get the idea, I don't feel like uploading any more photos.

Nine months - you know that I had to show off her new, bigger-size swimsuit. She's such a big girl and has gotten so roly-poly, we sure love her!

Homemade

 Enjoy a photo of Willa in her bikini, I'll probably take it down, but it was just so cute!  I babysat for a girl I visit teach.  She has two girls who are 4 and 6.  We got ready to go swimming, but the only swimsuit I could find for Willa was this bikini.  The little girls both had one-pieces and they asked by Willa's belly showed.  I am a bad example.  

Every once in a while Yahoo, or MSN, or some other news program will run a special on how to save money.  It's so annoying!  I always get sucked in to reading their "Top Ten" ways to save money and it invariably lists things like make coffee at home instead of going to Starbucks every day, or don't order appetizers when you go out to eat, or only order water with you meal.  Does this frustrate anyone else?  It's like, uh doy!!!!

I'm looking for real money saver solutions, not stuff that poor college students (me and Ryan) were already doing.  I want someone to tell me something like if you run your dishwasher after 10 pm it will be more energy efficient because it's cooler outside or less people are on the grid.  Or, maybe someone can write about thinning out the laundry detergent - do you really need to fill the cup up to the "large" load line?  

Since we moved to Texas, I have been cooking and making things a lot more.  I did cook in Los Angeles, but it was hard since I was working and also since Ryan was studying late every night.  He actually asked me to stop cooking dinner because he would study so long on campus that by the time he got home at night he preferred to have a small snack and go to bed instead of a big meal.  Don't worry, he assured me that it wasn't my cooking skillz that drove him to a dinner-less existence.  It was a funny situation because I liked cooking but my husband didn't want me to do it, kind of the opposite of most couples.

Here in Texas, Ryan likes dinner again.  I've also started making all our bread, yogurt, and now Willa's baby food.  It's been not too hard and pretty cheap.  The more I make our own stuff, the more I like it.  It's nice knowing what is going into it.  The biggest thing, though, is that it's cheap!  It's nice to save a little money on things that don't matter to us so that we can spend a little money on the things that do.  I might not always have the time to do things like this, but I have the time now.  Anywho, no real point to this post.  I just thought I'd write about what I do each day and some of that includes making baby food, yogurt, and bread. Ryan's mom gave me some recipes to make my own soap and laundry detergent, but I'm not up to that yet.  If you coupon well enough, you can get cleaning supplies for free.  What's better? Making them yourself or getting them for free?  Discuss.

Willa enjoying peaches (why do we always forget to feed her until after the bath?!)

Hoarders

Ryan and I occasionally watch the show Hoarders. We starting watching it because we were really getting desperate searching the Netflix watch instantly queue for something good and we thought it would be a rather light-hearted choice. Woah, ho ho! Were we ever wrong! Hoarders has got to be one of the most depressing shows on television. We set out for some good old-fashioned voyeurism and poking fun, and at the end of every episode we just end up feeling depressed and sorry for these people. Ryan claims that this show is making him more sympathetic to hoarders. It's so sad to see people who are sooo lonely that they become attached to stuff, which then drives away all other humans from them, which causes them to be more attached to their stuff.

Usually, this show makes us want to clean out our closets and do it fast! However, last week I had my own temptation to hoard when I experienced a wonderful little thing called GARAGE SALES!

Our neighborhood is very suburban and there are lots of young families - the perfect two ingredients for garage sales! Every weekend there are signs everywhere for garage sales. About two weeks ago I was out driving and on an impulse I followed a garage sale sign to see if I could find a walker for Willa. No walker, but two other really great, almost new toys that I knew she would really like! I grabbed those goodies up and swore that I would return to garage sales the next Saturday and get me that walker!

The next week came and I got up Saturday morning and started driving around looking for garage sales. These things are gold mines!! Now I understand why people go to these things! After just a few houses I found the perfect, almost new exersaucer for Willa! I also passed up two cribs, two swings, a jumper, and a million other things. With any luck, Willa will never own another brand-new item for the rest of her life :)!

This brings me to my next point. Garage sales must be like a drug for people who hoard! I came across a toy that had exactly the same function as a toy we already had at home. Plus, this toy at the garage sale was older, dirtier, more worn out, and just nastier than the one we already had. BUT, this toy was only a dollar!!! I seriously considered buying this gross, nasty toy because it was a "good deal"! Woah, I had to take a moment at the garage sale to think through things. And... I can't really think of how to end this train of thought except that I DIDN'T buy the toy and I still prefer throwing things out! Ryan used to dream about owning only 100 items. Sometimes it's fun to think of those mini-houses and how you would live in them. One knife, one fork, one pot, two pairs of pants, etc. No room to accumulate junk, everything there has a specific purpose.

On another note, our Costco coupons came in the mail today and I haven't even opened them yet! I used to love the day that these coupons came in the mail. When we moved to Texas, with all their talk of everything bigger and better, I thought there would be a Costco on every corner (a true paradise); however, there are only two Costcos in the entire Houston area! We have to drive 30-40 minutes and go through a toll road to get to one. Paying the toll, plus gas doesn't quite make it the great money-saver that it used to be. There are, however, Sam's Clubs everywhere. I hate Sam's Club! It's like the poor man's Costco. There is hardly any fresh produce and just aisles and aisles of candy and junk food. Sam's Club is to Costco what Walmart is to Target. No competition! You know how you can just walk through Costco or Target and feel refreshed and cheerful, yeah - not the same feeling at Sam's or Walmart. Here is the worst part! Sometimes I go to Sam's club for big stuff and immediately after go to Walmart to get some cheaper small groceries and I find out that the items I bought at Sam's are cheaper at Walmart. What the what?!! I mean, come on. Okay, I just hate Sam's Club! I'm trying to overcome my aversion and I still like getting cheap gas and buying diapers in bulk, but I miss my Costco.

I think my rant is over. Here is a cute picture of Willa from the other morning. Usually after she wakes up I will put her in some comfy lounge pants and a shirt and we will go out running. I used to wait for Ryan to come back (he would watch Willa while he got ready) but now I just want to get out before the sun comes out, so I've started using the stroller a lot more again. She's so cute. Don't you just love the fresh smell of baby in the morning? I love how soft and feathery her morning bedhead is.

Happy Fourth of July!

Willa in her flag dress for church.  Ryan had on navy slacks and a red tie, so patriotic!

Outfit for the actual Fourth of July.  We are at a friend's house for swimming and barbecue.  We wanted to go to a local parade in the mid-morning so we put Willa down early for her morning nap - but she ended up sleeping over three hours and we completely missed it.  

Home again, exhausted baby and dad after no afternoon nap and lots of swimming and sun.

Excuse the blurry photo, but we had a visitor a few nights ago!  A friend from USC, Jon Harmon stopped by on his drive from Los Angeles to officer training in Alabama.  He just graduated from dental school and is about to start paying back Uncle Sam in the Air Force.  He's doing a mega-long road trip out to Alabama and we were happy to provide a couch, air-conditioning, and a shower - which was a big improvement from sleeping in his car, especially in this heat!  It was so fun to see a Los Angeles friend.  Jon is happy to be done with school and to say sayonara to the dental school.  Having worked there, I completely understand.

Willa seems to have grown into an enormous child overnight.  Nuclear exposure, maybe?  Here she just pulled down her entire play yard on top of her.  I decided that it was time to retire ye olde play yarde.  We've certainly gotten our money's worth with this thing!

Ryan constructed a little sleigh ride for Willa and her friends.

It's been hotter than Hades here.  It's depressing seeing the 7-day forecast when every day has the number 98 or 99 by it.  Sheesh!  On the news this morning they said that the average temperature for June is around 86 degrees, but this June the average was 98 degrees!!!  Ryan and I don't think it's quite as hot as Las Vegas, where he put a cookie sheet and cookie dough in his car and the cookies actually baked while he was at church.  It is, however, quite hot and it is quite early for it to be so hot.  

I have mixed feelings on the heat.  I served my mission in Canada and ever since then I have HATED the cold.  It was so so so cold and we were only allowed to stay inside if it was -40 F or colder, and it got that cold! I think I developed some sort of post-traumatic stress from it because afterwards I hated the cold and would get anxiety from it.  One of the reasons we picked Texas was because it wasn't cold. But this winter there was freak cold spell here and the temperature was in the 20s.  I moved here thinking I could handle one bad season (summer) but not two bad seasons.  I hate being trapped inside, at least when it is cold you can put more layers on and still go out sledding or skiing.   We'll see if we acclimatize here.  We go running at 6:00 am (when it's already 78 degrees) and it's bearable because the sun isn't up yet.